Scott & Isaac-related fic
SETTING BONES
PAIRING: Scott/Isaac
RATING: PG/PG13
LENGTH: 1900 words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 09-08-12
DISCLAIMER: don't own anything related to TW.
SUMMARY: Every time Scott gets injured in the line of duty, Isaac is the half-human, half-Romulan medic who takes care of him. This is one of those times.
WARNINGS: mentions of blood and a bone sticking out where it shouldn't
NOTES: the wonderful sophinisba recorded a podfic of this
“Hey, outta the way! Hero coming through, hero who saved my life coming through. Come on, do you even know how to use your legs? Do you know who this is? Outta the way, redshirt.”
“Stiles-” Scott gasps, feeling every footstep, every lurch to avoid someone, every sideswipe like a phaser blast straight to his chest, as Stiles drags him tripping through the medical bay. “Stiles, you’re-you’re hurting me even more.”
“Oh?” Stiles rounds the cots farthest out, aiming down the row for Isaac, who’s standing at the ready with a wide, violent frown and a tricorder. “Oh! Holy- Sorry, here, look, uh, there’s the good doctor now. Ready to heal you or- Or eat you? I never really can tell with him. Maybe it depends on the day you, you know, get maimed?”
Isaac meets them halfway and peels Stiles off Scott almost roughly, so he can hitch him up in his arms like it’s nothing. Except everything hurts even worse that way than how Stiles had been holding him, and Scott chokes back a wet groan at the sudden shift. But it’s only, like, a second before Isaac’s at the foot of one of the best cots in the place (Scott would know, he’s been in it enough) and is sitting him down on it, as gently as he possibly can.
With a worn-out sigh, Scott gives himself to the shock and Isaac’s hands. He slumps over himself, swallowing back the taste of blood in his throat, pushing a shaking palm against his rib cage, though Isaac urges it off with a blunt ‘no.’
Stiles hovers just behind Isaac, as Isaac starts tracing the tricorder over Scott. He’s white as a sheet and scrubbing his hands back and forth over his buzzcut, and, through the pain, Scott can’t figure out if he's just sticking around because he needs to see for himself that Scott’s okay or because he’s always been kind of weirdly obsessed with this kind of shit and the fact that one of the best doctors on the ship is half-human and half-Romulan. Maybe wants to make sure Isaac doesn’t start torturing Scott or dissecting him or something.
Even though Isaac’s human traits outweigh his Romulan ones, it still doesn’t stop people from judging him like that. All they see are his tipped ears and the harsh brows, and the facial tattoos popularized over the years in what’s left of the Romulan community. Sometimes Scott even overhears people talking about how his temper must be Romulan, too, but Scott’s known some way more intense humans, so that one could go either way, really.
And besides, Isaac’s got enough sentimentality for a dozen humans, and he always has these moments of what Scott considers 'softness' that, Romulan or human, are him, more than anything.
“You should have waited for the stretcher,” Isaac bites at Stiles, not taking his attention off Scott.
Now isn’t one of those soft moments, though.
“Hey, I-” Stiles starts out, really ballsy. But then he’s deflating at the sound of Scott grunting, when Isaac follows the tricorder with a tentative hand, feeling out the damage to his chest.
“Okay, I may have a bad idea or two from time to time?” Stiles offers, voice sort of cracking.
Isaac’s eyes slim, only that Scott can see.
“I thought I could get him here faster than they could come. And I'm pretty sure I did, so...”
Isaac turns on him, then. “At the risk of more serious damage to his body? There’s a reason stretchers are used. I ordered one sent the second I found out.”
“Again, don’t think things through from time to time. Hi, have you met me? Stiles Stilinski.” Stiles holds his hand out for Isaac to shake, but Isaac only stares at it.
It's not really just human or just Romulan, him doing that, but it's strange, the way that Scott second-guesses stuff like that and gets this...kind of vibe that Isaac always becomes a little more Romulan when he's stressed. Or around Stiles.
“Fair enough. Uh…” Stiles takes his hand back with this intimidated look, swallowing hard, like for a second there he was afraid Isaac might've gone for the shake, only to rip his arm off instead. “We’re here now, and you and your tattoos can fix him up nice and new, okay? Speaking of which, those things will never not be-” he grimaces, making a weird motion toward his own face. “I mean, you know, a doctor with tattoos is just…”
Isaac doesn’t even bother saying anything to that. His lip just curls up at him, probably vicious head-on, but Scott can only see it from the side.
“Guys,” he wheezes. “Dying here.”
Isaac snaps back to him fast and foregoes the rest of the tricorder scan, trying instead to slide Scott’s shirt up and get a better look at the wound, with his own eyes. It sticks to where the blood’s dried, though, and Scott seethes out a few hard breaths through his teeth, even as Isaac cups a warm, reassuring hand around the back of his neck.
“You know, what?” Stiles takes a huge step back, eyes rolling up toward the ceiling to just completely avoid the scene altogether - Isaac especially, probably, considering... “I just had the greatest idea. It involves me not being here. In fact, it involves me going to make sure Lydia got to her room okay, all the way on the other end of the ship. I think I’ll put it into practice. All the way on the other end of the ship.”
“Good,” Isaac says. Then, to Scott, in a gentler voice, “I have to cut your shirt off to see.”
Scott nods, frantic for whatever Isaac has to do to stop the pain. He’d cut it off himself, if he wasn’t afraid he’d black out and end up cutting something else off, instead.
“Okay, so it looks like you can handle the situation from here…” Stiles says, to no one, really. At least, Scott hopes he’s not looking for a conversation or confidence boost, right now? It’s definitely not the time.
Stiles ends up hanging around for another long minute, until Isaac has most of Scott’s shirt snipped away from the wound in small, patient pieces. After that, it’s not two seconds before he gets an eyeful, makes this terrible gagging sound and stumbles out of the med bay.
Scott can’t blame him. He hates being here, too, with all the weird smells and the feeling of impending death and how many bad memories get trapped in this place, with nowhere else to go. It’s kind of really shitty, how much he hates it, considering how often he winds up laid out on a cot anyway, on the wrong side of a tricorder.
It’s also really shitty that the person he’s been way into, the past few months, practically lives here, even on his off-hours. There’s not much opportunity to see him, sometimes, unless Scott's getting hurt - which is probably a bad silver lining, but at least it still is one?
Isaac pauses a second to urge Scott to lie back on the cot. Then he’s giving him this long, silent, parental look, if just to ask Scott how he got to be friends with Stiles in the first place or maybe to reprimand him for landing himself here again, so soon after the last time.
But he doesn’t say anything. And in the bizarre quiet of the bay, that’s way too loud.
Scott wraps his fingers tight in the shoulder of Isaac’s shirt, for something else to focus his desperation on than the rib sticking up through his skin. “I thought you’d have been waiting at the transporter pad?”
“I would’ve been, but,” Isaac smirks a little, bitterly, turning to try and grab the cleansing ray off the instrument tray, without disturbing Scott’s hand on him. But it’s just out of reach, even with those long fingers of his, and he has to untangle Scott from his sleeve with a shallow frown. “But I didn’t want anyone getting ideas. For your reputation…”
“What reputation? I don’t think they would’ve, anyway…? I’m hurt, you’re a doctor? Stiles still just thinks you hate him because you’re jealous he hangs out with Lydia.”
Isaac scowls. “Everyone isn’t Stiles… And I’m-not jealous of him.”
“Are you sure?” Scott doesn’t have to force his grin at that, despite Isaac pressing the ray against his wounds to start disintegrating away the blood and what shreds of the shirt didn't come off easily, in that light, pinching tingle he hasn’t ever quite gotten used to…even with the cool glide of disinfectant after it. Here he is with a rib basically sticking out of his chest, but somehow something much smaller makes him want to crawl out of his skin or abandon ship or something.
His hand finds its own way into Isaac’s shirt again, and he focuses harder on his smile, blinking back the sting in his eyes. “Are you? Because I-I kind of liked it?”
Isaac cocks a brow, but keeps his attention to the task at hand. “That so?”
“Yeah. It is.”
“I’ll have to remember that for later…” he mumbles so casually, Scott isn’t sure he even really heard what he said. But then Isaac licks this sharp leer onto his face, eyes still cast down.
Scott can’t help perking up at that, much to the resentment of his body. It's nice to know that even here, in these circumstances, he could get it up if he really wanted to. It's not like he hasn't thought about it, anyway, having sex down here. Mostly when Isaac's pulling double shifts or buried in lab results.
“Take it easy.” Isaac huffs a laugh, so close it skates over Scott’s skin, pricking up goosebumps. And Scott expects him to follow that up with something else equally teasing or promising or fun, especially in light of what he's just been through, but- “Under the blood and shirt, it doesn’t look too bad? I’ll set the rib and put you in the regenerator, but I want to take an ostreographic series to make sure there’s no other damage. Barring...any unforeseen results, you’ll have to take it slow for the next few days, but that’s it. Do you think you can do at least that little?”
No. Dude, no. Medical jargon. Obligations to rest. He seriously needs to stop getting hurt, or Isaac’ll never say anything else to him ever again.
“Do you?”
Scott nods, but it only takes a second under Isaac’s skeptical eyes for it to turn into a resigned shake, instead.
Isaac mimics him, shaking his head too.
“I could've guessed as much. Thanks for saving me the trouble of not believing you, though. Maybe I’ll just have to…” He purses his lips, considering his options for a minute, even though the brightness in his eyes gives away that he already knows exactly what he’s going to have to do. “I’ll just have to watch you like a true, full-blooded Romulan would. Won’t I?”
For some reason, that makes Scott’s cheeks burn and his stomach flip, his heart pound both quicker and harder than it had right before his rib snapped. And the look on Isaac's face doesn't calm any of it down, either.
It really never does
“Promise?” Scott asks
Isaac's smirk speaks for itself.
FAMILY PHOTOS
PAIRING: none, gen
RATING: G
LENGTH: 4200+ words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 08-22-12
SUMMARY: even though they worked together to stop Gerard and save Jackson, Scott still doesn't really trust Isaac. It becomes more of a concern when his mom invites Isaac to come stay with them.
When Scott's mom got an idea in her head, it was really hard to talk her out of it. It was also really hard to talk her into something, if she wasn't already sort of onboard or was in a bad mood. Which was pretty much the source of most of their arguments and why, even though Scott had told her almost everything - especially that he still had really mixed feelings about Isaac, and that Isaac was going to try and smooth things over with Derek, anyway - she had still insisted on him staying with them for a few days.
"At least until he gets things figured out. ...Or longer. If he wants," she’d said.
And she'd been weirdly happy about it, too.
Maybe it was a nurse thing. Or a mom thing.
Scott hadn't really known what it was that turned Isaac around, and it wasn't like he wasn't grateful for it, but he still had this pit in his stomach over the fact that if Isaac could change so fast for the better, what was to say he couldn't just as easily one-eighty again? And this time under the same roof as Scott's mom.
It would have been one thing if it was just Scott, by himself. Or if Isaac was over with Derek and Peter, doing whatever it was they were doing. Either of those options would’ve made a more even playing field. Scott didn't want to not trust him, and he didn't want Isaac having to spend any more time with the Hales than he had to - especially if he didn't really want to - but this was his mom. He couldn't be letting his guard down, even for someone who'd been there when he'd really needed him.
Things had started off relatively okay, though, with his mom and him giving Isaac a short tour of the house, really just to get him used to the layout and the pull-out sofa in the living room. Isaac had managed a smile the whole time and this kind of polite slouch, like he didn't want to go around intimidating Scott's mom or anything. He’d even given her a few compliments about the decorating, which had really made her perk up.
He’d been totally great.
But Scott's nerves were getting the best of him, now. Isaac had disappeared off to the bathroom about halfway through the three of them fixing dinner together - Scott's mom had looked so happy about that, too; it was nice to see her like that for a change, even if he didn’t really get it - but he was already almost done setting the table, and Isaac still hadn't come back.
The timer for the pasta went off.
"Would you go check on Isaac?" his mom said, as she hefted the pot up and rushed for the strainer in the sink.
"Mom, I can-" Scott started toward her, but before he could even make it halfway across the kitchen, she'd already gotten the pasta dumped out and the pot righted in a cloud of steam. He would've made it if he'd sped up, but he was trying not to do things like that around her. Not yet, at least. Not unless he had to.
He didn’t want to scare her, either.
"Please. It builds good upper-body strength." She set the pot down on a potholder and turned toward him, pushing her hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist, leaning heavy into the counter, like slinging the pasta had really taken it out of her. But she still had enough strength to raise an arm and flex for him; she had pretty big guns, too, considering she had to lift patients so much. He’d kind of forgotten that. A pot of pasta was probably nothing.
A werewolf wasn’t a pot of pasta, though.
"Go check and make sure he's okay."
"I'm sure he's fine, Mom."
"What if he got lost, Scott?"
His brow furrowed. "You're joking, right?"
"Of course I'm joking.” She picked up a stray potholder and pretended to swat it at him. “But go check on him. Please? For your mother? The woman who pushed-"
"Mom!"
She smiled. "That's my boy. Hurry up."
He couldn't help smiling back, going for the door, shaking his head. "Okay. But yell if you need anything, okay?"
"Don't worry. I'm sure I can wrangle a few meatballs without breaking anything!" she yelled after him.
He waited until he was out of the kitchen, with the door swinging shut behind him, to let his shoulders sew up. He'd have to tell her there really was no need to shout anymore.
Not that he minded, but... Save her the trouble.
Unless he was in trouble. Then she'd yell no matter what. And it'd just be, like, ten times worse because of it.
He needed to never get in trouble again.
In the hallway, he could hear the slow, steady pulse of Isaac's heartbeat even better, but it wasn't coming from the bathroom, like he'd assumed. It was-
in the living room?
Isaac’s smell got bolder as Scott rounded the stairs. Definitely the living room, then. Maybe he’d lain down to take a nap?
The second Scott saw him, though, he stopped dead in the doorway.
Isaac hadn’t heard him coming, if him tensing up and his heartbeat taking off all of a sudden said anything. But he didn't turn to face Scott, and Scott was kind of glad for it. He didn't know what to say.
He guessed, from the way Isaac was standing, he’d been looking at all the family photos on the back wall, the ones Scott hardly ever even looked at anymore. It was weird how you could get so used to something right out in plain sight that you just completely stopped seeing it, until someone else noticed it. And then you felt a little bad because you’d forgotten.
Isaac cast a sheepish glance over his shoulder, slouching down again. "Sorry, I-was just looking at your pictures."
Scott took that as invitation enough to come in, even though it was his house. "Yeah. My, uh, my parents used to take a lot of pictures when I was little."
"Is that your dad?" Isaac asked, pointing toward the one photo that was of Scott, his mom and his dad, all huddled together on a blanket at the beach. He'd had to stop his mom from trashing it, the day after his dad finally moved out, and he'd been the only one volunteering to hang it back it up with the rest of them, like it still was something special (he'd had to do it when she was at work, even, so she wouldn't notice right away). But even now he sometimes caught her staring at it, and he’d wonder if it wouldn't just have been better to get rid of it, like she’d wanted to in the first place. It didn't mean as much to him now as it used to.
But somehow, he thought it meant more to her now than it used to.
So he didn’t touch it.
"Yeah,” he nodded. “That's him."
"He dead?" Isaac didn't even hesitate.
"Uh, no. But," Scott rubbed along the back of his neck, could feel his heart pounding a little faster, too. "But I haven't really seen since I came back to live with my mom?"
Isaac nodded, more to himself.
Usually people followed that up with a 'why?,' but it was nice not to have to explain for once.
"Those people in that one below it are my grandparents. And my uncle and aunt and some of my cousins. On my mom's side. They live further south. We usually go to their houses for the holidays."
"We used to go to my grandparents' for the holidays, too,” Isaac said. “My...dad's mom and dad. But they passed away a while ago."
"Dude, that sucks."
"Yeah." This close, Scott could feel something about the way Isaac was standing that made him think any minute Isaac might reach forward and take the photos off the wall to hoard them. He had this impression of longing to him; Scott couldn’t explain it, how he just knew. "It's been so long, I hardly remember them. But that dog...at Dr. Deaton's, he looked like the one my grandma had. My dad wouldn't let us keep her, after they both died, though. I guess she went to the pound."
Scott put a hand on Isaac's shoulder. He could feel him - it wasn’t a flinch, but it was something - and he pulled his hand back fast, like it’d never been there. By the way Isaac tilted his face away, though, that somehow felt like it’d been the wrong reaction to have.
Scott thought about putting his hand back, but it was strange, all of a sudden. Isaac felt faraway, all of a sudden, even though they were only two feet apart.
"We could go see him, if you wanted,” Scott offered instead. “I’m meeting Stiles in the afternoon, but Deaton had to take off for a couple days, so I have to check in there, anyway. He got most of the animals cleared out, but Bear's still there."
"I'm supposed to go see Derek tomorrow afternoon, too." Isaac ducked his head. He was quiet a minute.
Scott took the opportunity to reach forward and straighten out one of the photos, not sure how it’d gotten crooked. Maybe his mom. Maybe him or Stiles slamming the front door too much.
In any case, it made Isaac’s heart throb.
"The morning's good," he said, to cover over it.
"Spaghetti's growing icicles, boys! Get it in gear!"
Isaac did really flinch at that.
Scott definitely had to talk to her about yelling.
^
Since the Lahey house wasn't much more than a mess of runaway heirs, open crime scenes, bad memories and bank foreclosures, they had to make do with what Scott had on hand. The McCalls were no strangers to making do, but it was still pretty funny how even Scott's biggest sleep shirt and pants were way too small for Isaac. It looked like he'd gone to the bathroom a kid and come back a teenager. Scott kind of couldn't stop looking at him and laughing about it, as he helped pull out the sofa bed, that night.
Even Isaac laughed too, eventually. After he’d gotten all red in the face.
But that wasn't why Scott stayed downstairs with him, until his mom had to yell for him to leave their guest alone and get to bed- you're too old for sleepovers!
Maybe it was part of it.
He still didn't really trust him, though. Not like he wanted to. They’d had a good dinner - a great dinner, judging by how much his mom had smiled - but that was just dinner. And the longer he could keep an eye on Isaac, the less he worried about his mom.
The longer he could keep an eye on him, the more chance he had to put his fears to rest.
^
They got through the night without incident. But not the vet visit. And it wasn't even one Scott had anticipated. Not seriously.
Scott'd left Isaac alone in the exam room with Bear for a few minutes, while he went to check on the rest of the animals and refresh their food dishes. It was against policy to leave them with strangers, but it probably was okay, just this once, in case Isaac wanted to cry or something; he'd seemed close to it yesterday, and considering what’d happened last time he saw Bear, it probably wasn't too out there to assume.
Besides, Scott hadn't felt any danger in him, not a smell, not a tick, not a claw stirring, nothing. He couldn’t trust him, but he could trust himself to know his own instincts, and it seemed okay.
He was almost done filling the bowls when he heard Bear whine, and then the crash of something falling into a bunch of metal that literally, like, rained down on the floor- probably the instrument tray Deaton kept prepped and ready twenty-four/seven, just in case.
"Shit!" Scott barked, dropping the bag of kibble and darting around to the exam room, where he found-
Isaac sprawled face-down on the floor in a mess of instruments, the metal tray angled up on his shoulder, and the tray holder tipped over on its head, wheels still spinning. Bear had jumped off the table and was starting to nose at Isaac’s neck, but he didn't budge.
It took Scott falling onto him fast and turning him over before it really sank in that Isaac's veins were all blackened - all of them - up through his face, in his hands and arms, along his abdomen where his shirt rode up a little. He had a few nicks, too, from where he’d fallen on the instruments, but they were closing fast.
"Holy shit. Crap-Isaac!" Scott shook him, but Isaac was like a bag of sand in his arms.
Bear started barking, throwing himself around in a frenzy. Isaac reeked like Gerard, like cancer; Bear was probably picking up on it, too.
"Isaac! Okay, okay," Scott got an arm free enough to wrestle his cell phone out of his back pocket and thumb up the address book.
He tried Deaton first. Straight to voicemail. It was a waste, but he left a message anyway, something that didn't even make sense as he said it, though it still made his heart beat faster and Bear bark louder. He’d probably get a call later, about Deaton being worried sick or that he was going to have to end his trip early if Scott really couldn’t handle the clinic on his own. But it was too late to care right now.
Derek was next on the list. Scott wasn’t expecting-
he actually picked up.
"Scott, what?"
"It's Isaac- He took away the pain of this dog in our clinic that has cancer, and now he's unconscious and his veins, they're all black! I, I don't know what to do!"
"What? Scott, slow down."
"Derek!"
In the background, Scott could hear footsteps coming close, and then Peter’s voice saying, "Give me that." It was only a second later that he was on the line instead, no signs of struggle except that somewhere far off Derek huffed about it.
"Not that I didn’t already hear you, Scott, but say again what's wrong with Isaac?"
"He tried to take the pain away from a dog with cancer, and now he's unconscious."
"Who taught you that trick? Alan?"
"Alan?" Scot asked, thrown for a second. “Oh! Dr. Deaton. Yeah, it was him. What do I do?!"
"Of course it was," the way Peter said it made Scott wish Deaton hadn't left town - or that he would just answer his phone next time. He hadn’t even known Peter knew Deaton, at least not well enough for first names. "Did he not also tell you to go easy with that little gift?"
"He told me, not- Peter, what'm I supposed to do!"
"Nothing. You do nothing," Peter said calmly. And it was Derek talking in the background now, asking him, 'What trick?' and 'What does he mean, Isaac took a dog's pain away?' 'What's he talking about?' Peter just spoke over him, "He'll be fine. He just bit off more than he could chew, as is the rite of all teenagers in the history of time. He'll probably be coming around very soon. And when he does, Scott?"
"What?"
"Tell him you can take pain, but you can't take someone's death. At least not that way."
Scott grimaced.
"We'll come pick him up. Besides, he should be with us right now. For pack bonding. In fact, you should be here, too, but I won't waste my breath."
"I can bring him over, after he comes to."
"There's no point. We're already on our way."
Scott opened his mouth to protest again, but Peter had already hung up on him.
It didn't really matter anyway because as soon as he pulled the phone away from his ear, Isaac groaned.
^
Scott held the fish bowl of dog treats out at Isaac, slumped over in the waiting room chair, his hands wringing his pants in pain, veins still a strange, sick gray, but fading fast.
"Want one?" Scott smiled.
Isaac lifted his head to see. He managed a slow grin of his own, snorting. "No, thanks."
"Suit yourself. I thought you might need to build up your strength. Deaton buys the gourmet stuff. It’s like people food. Probably better than people food, actually..." Scott turned to put the treats back how Deaton had had them, next to his card holder and the blank appointment pad on the counter. They smelled even more meaty, now that Scott’d had the bite, and he was tempted to sneak one, if just because it might’ve wigged Isaac out.
It wasn’t like he hadn't tried them before, anyway. Him and Stiles had popped a couple on a dare one day, when Deaton hadn't been looking. They’d just tasted like stale bacon cookies. Not the worst thing he'd ever voluntarily eaten on a dare.
"I'm-sorry. If I made you worry," Isaac mumbled behind him.
Scott swung around, brow furrowed. "Huh?"
Isaac didn't say anything for a second, just pinned his eyes to something on Scott's shirt. It made Scott fidget. He hated when people did that. If they stared long enough, he always started thinking there was a stain or hole or something he'd missed getting dressed; more often than not, there probably was. "I didn't think that would happen. I'm sorry if I-made you worry about me? I thought maybe I could fix him…"
"Oh, yeah." Scott looked down at his shirt to check. "No. No! It's cool, dude. No worries. You didn't know it was gonna happen."
"I'm sorry about Lydia, too. I…"
Scott's eyes snapped up to him.
Isaac was staring at his hands now, folded together in his lap, "I don't know what I was thinking." But Scott could see how his eyebrows rose, how he chewed at his lip. And he could feel the regret coming off Isaac slowly, in a struggle.
Down the street, Derek's Camaro whined around a turn.
"I, uh..." Scott smoothed a hand down the front of his shirt, anxious. "I was weird when I first got bit. Not-that you’re weird or anything, but… I kind of...I don’t know, wanted to kill everyone, for a minute? So…" He couldn't smile, but he felt like Isaac sort of needed him to. "Maybe since Gerard and Matt are gone, and Jackson isn't the kanima anymore, we can breathe a little easier. For a while, at least?"
Until Jackson started douching out again (dude, this time with werewolf powers) or Peter went bloodlust².
"Yeah," Isaac agreed softly, still looking at his hands.
The Camaro pulled to a squealing halt out front - the kind that screwed up Scott’s spine, and Isaac’s too, by the expression on his face - a seatbelt whipping back into its holster and one of the doors slamming open and shut before Derek had even cut the engine.
Isaac stood up fast, though he wobbled some.
Scott stamped back the temptation to go help him.
A second later, Peter and Derek appeared in the glass of the door, framed in like a family photo.
"That's the last time you ever drive that car," Derek grit out, as he shouldered past Peter holding the door open for him, welcome-bells jangling.
"What?" Peter raised his brows innocently enough, leering at Derek’s back. "Where’s the fun in driving a car like that if you can’t test its limits? I just wanted to see what it was capable of."
Scott couldn't help the way he went rigid, coming face to face with Peter again so soon, hearing him talk about testing limits and capabilities and how it just looked like he was steamrolling Derek all over again.
Scott glanced at Isaac to see how he was taking it in, make sure he wasn’t flipping out or panicking or doing that one-eighty Scott feared. For the most part, he seemed a little unsure of himself and the situation, like it was all still too new to really get a hold of, even having met Peter a couple times already. But he also seemed like he had a pretty good idea so far, and what holes there were, he was trusting his instincts and looking to Scott for cues to help fill in.
…Not really looking at Derek.
"Hello, Scott," Peter said, a small tilt to his head. Derek stood off to his side, silent, his face set in that defensive scowl he liked so much, watching Isaac not look at him.
“I’d say ‘long time, no see,’ but that’s not quite true anymore, is it?”
Scott didn't bother with an answer, and Peter didn’t really wait for one.
He just shifted toward Isaac, face open and bright. "All right then. Hi, Isaac. I heard you got a bit saintly on us. How are we feeling?"
It probably was impossible for Isaac not to pick up on how tense Scott and Derek were in Peter's presence, and sure enough, Scott could see how he was starting to mimic them in posture and stance. He did that slouching thing again, too, to make himself smaller. But when he spoke, he didn't sound scared at all - he even smirked a little, which had Scott frowning. "I was repaying a debt. Trying to."
Peter took that with a smirked of his own. "I appreciate people who pay their debts. What I appreciate even more is people who pay them with interest."
Isaac nodded once, to say he understood - or thought he did, maybe not how Peter had meant it - nothing else to add.
"Well, Scott," Peter turned back to him, completely ignoring the elephant of anger and past hurt in the room. "You've been a delightful host, as usual. Tell Alan I'm sorry I missed him. But it's time we got moving. Places to go, people to see. You know how living can be."
"Yeah. I know," Scott muttered low. He knew well, at least Peter’s definition.
With one last, lingering look around, Peter turned and, in formation, the three of them started back out the door, Peter first, then Derek, and Isaac trailing along behind them.
"Hey, Isaac," Scott said, lurching forward to snag a hand in his sleeve before he could get too far.
Isaac met his eyes, although for a second he seemed to catch on Scott’s fingers in his shirt, mouth sort of slack. Scott could smell that sense of longing again.
"I know you want to try and work on things with Derek, but...but you know you have a place here, if you want, right? With me and my mom, I mean. And Stiles. And Allison. Whatever we are. If Peter gets too-"
Isaac nodded, watching Scott's hand for a long second, not saying anything; it made Scott feel clammy with nerves, from the lack of trust or overstepping Isaac’s boundaries or…something.
But he didn’t pull back this time.
"I'll be back for dinner?" Isaac said, like he was asking permission.
"Yeah, right. Of course. I'll see when my mom gets off. Stiles might be over, too."
"Okay."
It was weirder than the photos and Isaac staying over and his mom being happy about it that it was hard to see Isaac go with Peter and Derek, then. Even though Scott let him leave without a fight, it still was hard. It didn't feel right. Peter was up there with Gerard, in terms of manipulating and sacrificing people for his own gain, and under Derek, Isaac had done things that he regretted now. As much as Scott was still on the fence about trusting him, he trusted them even less.
But it was Isaac's choice. He needed to learn to listen to his own instincts. Scott couldn’t be there every time, and he wouldn’t make Isaac do anything he didn’t want to do, even if Scott thought it was for the best.
Maybe all he really could do was make sure Isaac knew he had another option, if things got bad.
And maybe that's why his mom had been so happy to have Isaac over, in the first place. Scott could kind of remember his mom talking about seeing Isaac in the ER a few times, but she'd never really gone into detail about it and Scott had never really cared enough to remember what she said. Maybe she'd known about Isaac’s dad. Or at least had a good guess. She'd always given Scott hugs after she'd mentioned Isaac- he’d always squirmed out of them.
She must've known.
Scott followed behind Isaac a few feet, came out to stand on the front walk and watch as Peter pushed the passenger seat down for Isaac to duck into the back of the Camaro. Isaac moved without any hesitation, but once he’d gotten settled, he angled a look out at Scott, not bothering with a seatbelt.
Even as Peter pushed the passenger seat back and got in himself, Isaac was still looking.
Even as Peter shut the door and Isaac’s face became clouded with tinted glass and black siding, he was still looking.
Scott was looking, too. He stayed looking, long after the car had left.
BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN
PAIRING: none, gen
RATING: G
LENGTH: 4200+ words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 09-23-12
SUMMARY: after everything calms down, Isaac wants to go back to his house to get a few things. He asks Scott to go with him.
NOTES: I fancied this as something of a sequel to the above, but you don't have to read it that way at all.
“Thanks,” Isaac said to the passenger window, his voice bottomed-out, like he'd been building up to that one word so much, he’d stripped himself a little raw. “For agreeing to come with me to get the rest of my stuff. I didn’t-want Derek to come.”
Scott threw a quick glance over at him. Isaac was looking down at the handle on the car door, though, and there wasn’t much to read from the edges of his eye or his mouth, the cut of his nose. Scott could feel a block of defensiveness coming off of him, but that was pretty much always there, even when Isaac was putting on the badass act, and more than saying anything new about him, it said a lot about Scott. Because he didn’t like that sometimes the wall got worse around him, and he wasn’t sure what he was doing or not doing to Isaac to make him afraid of him. Now most of all.
"Dude, it's cool. No problem."
Scott had the urge to reach out and rub a hand along his back, but he remembered the few times he’d touched Isaac before, and while they hadn’t led to anyone getting messed up or Isaac suddenly avoiding him, there had always been this weirdness to them. So Scott had kind of developed this need for Isaac to come to him on his own terms.
He guessed maybe this was a start.
It was good that, even though he’d gone back to living with Derek and Peter, Isaac still wanted Scott around, wanted to trust him with stuff like this. Scott hadn’t seen Isaac’s room or Isaac’s memories, but he had seen that basement. He knew what the house meant to Isaac, if just for that alone. To be the one asked to come and relive it with him - that said something that relieved Scott to hear, although he’d never admit it to Isaac for obvious reasons.
He was relieved, too, that Derek had really gotten in a mood about no one going anywhere by themselves, with the alpha pack roaming around and Boyd and Erica having disappeared without a trace. Scott still didn’t consider himself part of Derek’s pack, not by a long shot, and he definitely didn’t care about what Derek did or didn’t want, but the order made sense, and he was pretty sure that without it, Isaac would’ve thought he had to go at this alone, when he really didn't have to. Even if he’d only invited Scott along out of some obligation to his alpha, at least someone would be there if he ended up needing it.
And if he didn't, Scott could just stay in the car or keep his mouth shut and help with the heavy lifting. No problem.
“You really don’t have to thank me for stuff like this. I’d do it for any of my friends.”
That perked Isaac’s head up from its soft droop, but he still didn’t look at Scott. And it made Scott a little self-conscious, if he’d said ‘friend’ too soon or something? Usually, he only worried about stuff like that with girls. Even then it was ‘girlfriend.’
For a beat, he wondered what Allison was up to. How she was doing. If she was okay. She hadn’t really been returning his calls or texts much, but he didn’t blame her.
“I’m not…I’m not trying to say I didn’t want to come or anything,” he started, guiding the car into Isaac and Jackson’s neighborhood, even as the wheel resisted and the chassis groaned, like it was ashamed to be coming into such a nice place. “But why didn’t you ask Derek to come with you? Was he okay with you asking me? Oh, tell me when to turn.”
Derek had brought him to the house that one time, and he thought maybe he could smell his way enough, if he put his window down and really tried, but he kind of wanted something about this to be normal. Just one friend driving another friend to his house. No gimmicks or weirdness or werewolf stuff for one freakin’ minute.
“He never really seems okay with anything he doesn’t come up with?” Isaac offered loosely, and Scott felt him angle toward him then, a lopsided grin on his face.
Scott grinned, too. It was pretty true.
“Keep going straight. He was actually fine with it. ...Relieved? Even. I told him about what happened when we first met, but he… I don’t know, he doesn’t really get it.”
But Scott did?
Suddenly, he wanted to just stop the car altogether, turn and pull Isaac across the console into a hug or throw his seatbelt off and rip out of the car. He settled on just frowning at the numbers counting up the houses; he remembered Jackson’s was 890, and Isaac lived across from him.
Had lived across from him. It was easier to focus on the small stuff, for a second.
“You think I’d get it?” he said, eventually, trying to shrug out the lock in his shoulders.
Isaac had picked up on the change in Scott’s demeanor and was quiet for a long minute himself, just fiddling with the pop-out cigarette lighter that no one ever used, in no hurry to answer.
His silence only made Scott feel worse because Isaac probably thought he’d said or done something wrong and didn’t want to mess it up even more than he already had. Even though he hadn't.
“I used to see your mom sometimes, down at the hospital.”
“Yeah, she mentioned that before.”
“Turn here.”
Scott was more than happy to do as he was told, noting the street name in case he’d ever need to come back. Stone Oak.
“She paid a lot of attention to me. When I was younger, I used to-just think she was like that for everyone? You know, a nurse. They’re…they’re supposed to be like that. Nice and caring, that’s what nurses are supposed to be. And then I thought, maybe she had some crush on me.” Isaac didn’t laugh at that, but Scott did, if just to encourage him on, even though he wasn’t sure he really wanted to hear this. “I think it was just a way to ignore the look she’d give me sometimes. Like she knew?” Isaac angled away again, to watch the houses pass by his window or to not miss the next turn. Maybe for other reasons.
Either way, Scott was a little glad for it.
“Sometimes people figure it out, even if you think you’re hiding it well.” That earned a soft, bitter laugh from Isaac, and Scott was so startled by it that he didn’t realize what ‘it’ was for a second. Isaac’s voice had gotten softer, too. Or just more careful, and there was something about the way he was holding himself, when Scott glanced over at him again, that made Scott uncomfortable in the power it gave him over Isaac. “But…usually people are really weird about it. Or, or they think they need to try and do everything for me or- that they know what I need to do, and they wonder why haven’t I already done it? Because it’s so easy. She didn’t. She didn’t make me feel cornered or stupid. So I figured maybe she knew? What it’s like..."
Scott could just make out Isaac’s face in the reflection off the passenger window, and he focused on that instead of focusing on what Isaac was implying or the way his heart had started to pick up its pace in anger, how it felt too big for his chest. He didn’t really know what he should’ve said, anyway. That Isaac was right? That his dad had had problems, too? That he still did? Scott didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t a big deal, and he for sure didn’t want it to be what they bonded over. And he didn’t want Isaac to feel like he somehow owed it to him to tell him anything, or to have Isaac hold out hope that Scott already knew the answers, just because he’d been dealt a test that was kind similar. Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t.
His dad had never locked him in a freezer or put him in the hospital. Not even close.
“Even if I’m wrong and you have no idea, I’d rather it be you than Derek.” Isaac tilted his face back toward him, and Scott made an effort to meet his eyes, even just for a second, because he knew Isaac wanted to be reassured. If he’d said all Isaac had just said, he’d have wanted to be reassured, too. It didn’t take werewolf senses to figure that one out. But being able to feel Isaac’s nervousness and smell the thickness of his sweat didn’t make it any more pleasant.
Scott wasn’t sure how much of what was coming off him Isaac could pick up on, either, worst of all his heartbeat. But he figured probably a lot. He needed some reassuring, too.
All of a sudden, Isaac was motioning out the windshield, where his house was coming up on the left.
Neither of them said anything else, those last few hundred feet.
^
It was hard not to picture the basement right away, when Isaac let Scott into his house. Or the kanima - Jackson - going for Allison. Being locked in the freezer. Seeing the scratch marks. Derek looming behind him, already knowing everything but stubborn, as freakin’ always, to really tell him much of anything.
It was hard not to look at Isaac and see those things too, for a second, even if Scott had never associated them with him before.
Isaac opened his mouth to say something, like he could feel Scott making the connection and he wanted to stop it or tell him it was okay, he was used to that kind of thing. But then he just frowned and, without a word, led Scott through the living room to the stairs. His room was the first one at the top, across from a bathroom that was dark and cold-smelling already, having only a small window and no one to use it in months; but it was pretty normal otherwise, just like the rest of the house.
Except for the basement.
And the fact that Isaac’s room didn’t have a door on it. The hinges were there, but that was it.
Scott got hung up on them long enough that Isaac answered the question he hadn’t even asked.
“My, uh…my dad, he-” he shrugged, “he didn’t really like not knowing what was going on in his house.”
Scott didn’t know why, but he nodded at that, as if it was just a normal, everyday kind of thing, and not something that deserved the, the frustration or-or anger or sadness or whatever it was making his body feel heavy and his insides sour, all of a sudden. There were a lot of things he could’ve said or done - a lot of things he wanted to say and do - but it didn’t feel right to be so pissed off about it if Isaac wasn’t acting pissed, first. And Scott didn’t want to make him mad, getting all worked up about it like he’d been there with him, saying things that Isaac had probably said to himself a thousand times already, opening all those cans of worms.
Coming here had been completely for Isaac. Whatever he needed or wanted, Scott would be. That was it. He didn’t need to go making it about his own outrage. Especially when he didn't know the whole story.
Besides, Mr. Lahey was dead. What was done was done. There wouldn’t be any more abuse.
But Scott knew well enough that that also meant there was no chance to get him the help he needed to fix things between him and Isaac. And if Scott knew anything else, he knew that no matter what his dad did, he still loved him; Isaac probably still loved his dad, too, and hadn't really been happy that he'd died, no matter what he'd done to him.
So Scott was even gladder he’d only nodded. If the positions were reversed, he wouldn’t have wanted Isaac going off about how bad his dad must’ve been. Even if he knew it was true.
Isaac turned and pulled the top drawer of his dresser open with a dry scrape, gnawing at one corner of his mouth. “This is my room,” he said, distractedly, reaching in to pull out handfuls of underwear and socks, before he thought better of it and got down on his knees, going for the space under his bed.
Scott took in the room, as Isaac yanked out box after box of comic books. It was pretty typical. In fact, it kind of reminded him of his own. Except neater. There were photos and magazine ads and posters on the walls, and a couple free-standing shelves of books and random stuff that probably meant something to Isaac. He had a desk in the far corner, under a wide, blinded window. A pair of sliding doors to a closet in another corner, covered in more ads and posters and a dart board without any darts. A big, green chair sat on one side of his bed, done out in a green-striped comforter, and on the other side was a wood nightstand with a lamp and a few more comic books.
Then Scott saw the acoustic guitar, hidden back in the gap between the nightstand and the wall.
“Whoa, you play?” he said, rounding the bed to slide it out. He regretted it immediately, not because of anything Isaac suddenly said or did, but because the guitar was taped up all over with duct tape. It had been smashed or dropped and put back together, but the neck was still loose in his fingers, and the body shifted when he got a hand under it. One of the strings came rebounding out against his knuckles with a high twinge.
It was already too late to put it back and pretend he'd never seen it, so he just looked down at Isaac, helpless.
“Sorry, I’ll put it ba-”
“It’s okay,” Isaac said, even though it didn’t feel like it was. His heartbeat had peaked over it at some point, even, but was coming back down. Slowly. “I don’t play. That’s my dad’s. He tried to teach me, but,” he went quiet a second, watching Scott lay it down on the bed, working his jaw around weirdly. “Wasn’t very good at it?”
“Oh. Hey, I could try to teach you?”
Isaac smiled at the guitar, but it was kind of a mean one, like Scott had just said something threatening.
“I mean it. If you wanted? I was pretty good at teaching Stiles, before he figured out he liked drums better. I have my guitar at home. We could jam sometime?”
Isaac's eyes flicked fast to him. “Really?”
“Sure,” Scott grinned. “We can work with this. Still looks pretty solid.” He reached down and tried to smooth out a bubble in one of the strips of tape, though it resisted. “I have some extra strings and stuff, too.”
The room grew silent as Isaac did the same to another piece, forgetting whatever it was he'd been digging under his bed for.
“…Child Services came after my dad did this,” he said, just as everything had sort of settled into this nice, warm peace.
Scott stilled. “Huh?”
“My dad just got angry about stuff. I don’t know, it was a biology test. I did really bad on it? And he came up here and broke some stuff.” Isaac’s mouth was turned down, but his tone was calm. Matter-of-fact. His heart wasn’t beating fast anymore, either, and there wasn’t that smell of sweat or fear. It seemed backward to Scott that he would be nervous in the car or even two seconds ago, but not now, talking about this. But that’s how it was. “I ended up going to the hospital. Your mom was there. And then Child Services came the next day.”
“My mom?”
Isaac hooked his fingers over the strings, plucking off a couple notes that were way out of tune. He nodded. “When he opened the door and they were standing there, my dad got this look on his face. I-I’d never, I don’t remember ever seeing him that scared before?”
His mom?
She’d been the one who’d called? Had she done that? Why hadn't she told Scott about it?
Maybe she had and he just hadn't been paying attention?
Maybe it was when he'd been over living with his dad, and she hadn't thought it was important enough a thing to tell him about in her every-other-day calls.
Suddenly, there was a loose, metallic jangle, and Isaac was shuffling back to make room for the large suitcase he was pulling out from under his bed. There was nothing in it, when he flipped the latches, except for a few more comic books in protector sleeves and some action figures. Somehow Scott had been expecting it to have been packed at the ready.
“Wait-what’d, why…if they came, why didn’t they take you away?”
Isaac climbed to his feet, burying the answer in the movement, “I lied to them.”
“What? Why?!” Scott couldn’t help himself asking, a gut reaction. “No, I mean...sorry. That’s not what I meant. You don’t have to tell me that, if you don't want to. Sorry. Man, I didn’t mean that.”
It was probably the same reason he’d gone to stay with his dad, freshmen year. Because he still loved him and wanted to be with him, even if it didn’t always seem like his dad felt the same way. And maybe Isaac believed in second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth chances just as badly as Scott did.
He watched Isaac’s shoulders sew up, his fingers squeezing the edges of the open drawer hard enough that it started to creak. He was doing that thing again, where he hid his eyes, and Scott hadn’t realized until now how much it inspired all these frustrated, confused things in him. Things that shouldn’t have been there. Things he couldn’t have described, if his life depended on it.
Isaac looked up at himself in the mirror above the dresser. His mouth was hung open a little, his breath more forced. “I don’t know?” he said, brow furrowing in confusion. “Maybe I, I guess I thought them visiting would be enough to scare him into stopping? Or I just, I couldn’t, it didn’t feel right, I couldn’t-”
“He was your dad.”
Isaac met Scott's eyes in the reflection.
^
Isaac took surprisingly little from his room. Really, just his suitcase, those few comic books and actions figures he hadn’t bothered taking out of it, a bunch of clothes from his dresser and closet, his iPod, the guitar and a small shoebox that had been taped in between the slats of his bed frame (Scott hadn’t asked what was in it). He would’ve taken his laptop, too, but it was nowhere to be found, so they figured the cops had confiscated it for evidence, in case the charges against Isaac had ever actually stuck.
Scott could probably ask Stiles to get it back for him, sometime. Maybe when he and his dad were on better terms.
They’d already gotten out the door, with the key in the lock, before Isaac pulled up short, setting his suitcase down, then the box on top of it.
“Forget something?”
“Yeah. You can leave the suitcase and stuff here.” Isaac made a loose gesture toward it and shouldered back inside. “I’ll get it when I come out.”
“It’s no problem. I’ll get it.”
“You don’t have to.”
And Isaac disappeared into the house, leaving Scott to try and out-nice the empty slice of living room through the cracked door.
After a second, he shrugged and went to take the guitar to the car first, careful to set it down in the space behind the driver’s seat, so it wouldn’t go flying on a turn or hard brake. And he kept his ear cocked for any weird noises in the house. There were some muffled cracks and loud, winding groans, but he figured maybe Isaac was just digging around for something in his closet or the basement, moving furniture to get at more secret boxes taped up underneath.
Not to mention Scott’s depth perception was still kind of bad, even five months in, and sometimes things that sounded big really weren’t. It might even just have been the house settling new, after having no one in it for so long. His mom had told him something like that, when he’d come back to live with her. She’d said the house was talking a lot more because it was happy he was there, the same as she was. He hadn’t believed it (about the house, at least), but it’d been nice to think it.
He’d just gotten one hand around the shoe box and the other through the suitcase handle, when he heard a crash so loud it made his stomach drop.
"Isaac?"
He peered into the house, washed out in shadows, looked at the dead couches and chairs in the living room, and the silent staircase a few feet beyond them, the side table just inside the door, with a lamp and a phone that had the cord cut and a couple old coupon books and mail inserts on it. He waited to hear Isaac scream, cry for help, another voice to clue him in that an alpha was here, anything. But-
There was another crash, like the house was imploding on itself or something, and then another, and Scott was dropping the box and careening through the door as the fourth broke across his face.
He shot up the stairs, but the fifth crash was definitely coming from the basement, and he whipped back down around into the hall so fast, he clipped his side on the banister.
“Damn it! Isaac!”
Grabbing at the pain in his ribs, he realized his claws were already out, his fangs not far behind, his eyes burning with over-sensitivity as he darted down the hall and through the huge hole he’d torn into the wall, trying to get to Allison that night. He was halfway down the basement stairs before the loud punch of Isaac’s heart and the sight stopped him cold.
Isaac stood stock still in the middle of a big mess. Scott remembered there having been junk all over the place, along the walls and in rows, almost a maze, seriously. But it had all been mowed down by parts of the freezer, like Isaac had taken it apart at the seams and thrown each piece in different directions. There was broken everything, everywhere, boxes upturned, dirty toys half buried, glass shards, furniture left in splinters, paintings speared through. And Isaac. Just standing in the middle of it all.
He had this horrible look on his face, his eyes wide and yellowed, his jaw jutted out around his fangs and the breath seething out of him, mouth cut down in an open frown. Blood dribbled off his knuckles, the only sound between their heartbeats, just a tinny, slow ping ping ping off the debris at his feet.
Scott ducked his head a second, if just to calm himself down, now that he could see Isaac was mostly okay. He took a few deep breaths to will away his own claws and fangs and eyes, but they wouldn’t go. He'd thought he’d gotten a pretty good handle on them lately, but they just wouldn't go, not now for some reason. Looking back up at Isaac only made him angrier, made his skin burn hotter where the changes had broken through him, his heart throbbing to catch up with Isaac’s.
Isaac pressed a shaking wrist to his mouth, just like he’d done at the clinic after he’d helped Bear. Except this time, there was blood smeared above his lip when he pulled his hand back and grinned against the tears in his eyes.
“…Sorry. Didn’t realize how much I wanted to do that.”
^
Out on the stoop later, Scott helped Isaac right the shoe box and put everything back in that’d come out when he’d dropped it. He tried not to look too closely at anything, to respect Isaac’s privacy, and for the most part, none of the stuff seemed personal enough or strange enough that Scott could even begin to guess what it meant or why Isaac had saved it, anyway. But there were a handful of polaroids that would’ve been easy to read, had not all but one fallen upside down on the walk, denying him the chance.
The one that was right-side-up was of Isaac on a bicycle, smiling like a little kid should always be smiling, but unlike Scott had ever seen the Isaac now smile. His dad was holding onto the back of the bike as he rocketed Isaac toward the camera, and he was smiling, too.
As Scott swept the pictures back into the box, he thought about hanging that one up at his house, with all the rest of the family photos - that it would look good there. He thought that Isaac would probably like that idea, too, but he didn’t know why. And it felt weird. So he didn’t offer.
Besides, Isaac didn’t live with him and his mom anymore. It didn’t make sense to keep one of his pictures at their house.
Except it kind of did. But he didn’t know why.
PAIRING: Scott/Isaac
RATING: PG/PG13
LENGTH: 1900 words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 09-08-12
DISCLAIMER: don't own anything related to TW.
SUMMARY: Every time Scott gets injured in the line of duty, Isaac is the half-human, half-Romulan medic who takes care of him. This is one of those times.
WARNINGS: mentions of blood and a bone sticking out where it shouldn't
NOTES: the wonderful sophinisba recorded a podfic of this
“Hey, outta the way! Hero coming through, hero who saved my life coming through. Come on, do you even know how to use your legs? Do you know who this is? Outta the way, redshirt.”
“Stiles-” Scott gasps, feeling every footstep, every lurch to avoid someone, every sideswipe like a phaser blast straight to his chest, as Stiles drags him tripping through the medical bay. “Stiles, you’re-you’re hurting me even more.”
“Oh?” Stiles rounds the cots farthest out, aiming down the row for Isaac, who’s standing at the ready with a wide, violent frown and a tricorder. “Oh! Holy- Sorry, here, look, uh, there’s the good doctor now. Ready to heal you or- Or eat you? I never really can tell with him. Maybe it depends on the day you, you know, get maimed?”
Isaac meets them halfway and peels Stiles off Scott almost roughly, so he can hitch him up in his arms like it’s nothing. Except everything hurts even worse that way than how Stiles had been holding him, and Scott chokes back a wet groan at the sudden shift. But it’s only, like, a second before Isaac’s at the foot of one of the best cots in the place (Scott would know, he’s been in it enough) and is sitting him down on it, as gently as he possibly can.
With a worn-out sigh, Scott gives himself to the shock and Isaac’s hands. He slumps over himself, swallowing back the taste of blood in his throat, pushing a shaking palm against his rib cage, though Isaac urges it off with a blunt ‘no.’
Stiles hovers just behind Isaac, as Isaac starts tracing the tricorder over Scott. He’s white as a sheet and scrubbing his hands back and forth over his buzzcut, and, through the pain, Scott can’t figure out if he's just sticking around because he needs to see for himself that Scott’s okay or because he’s always been kind of weirdly obsessed with this kind of shit and the fact that one of the best doctors on the ship is half-human and half-Romulan. Maybe wants to make sure Isaac doesn’t start torturing Scott or dissecting him or something.
Even though Isaac’s human traits outweigh his Romulan ones, it still doesn’t stop people from judging him like that. All they see are his tipped ears and the harsh brows, and the facial tattoos popularized over the years in what’s left of the Romulan community. Sometimes Scott even overhears people talking about how his temper must be Romulan, too, but Scott’s known some way more intense humans, so that one could go either way, really.
And besides, Isaac’s got enough sentimentality for a dozen humans, and he always has these moments of what Scott considers 'softness' that, Romulan or human, are him, more than anything.
“You should have waited for the stretcher,” Isaac bites at Stiles, not taking his attention off Scott.
Now isn’t one of those soft moments, though.
“Hey, I-” Stiles starts out, really ballsy. But then he’s deflating at the sound of Scott grunting, when Isaac follows the tricorder with a tentative hand, feeling out the damage to his chest.
“Okay, I may have a bad idea or two from time to time?” Stiles offers, voice sort of cracking.
Isaac’s eyes slim, only that Scott can see.
“I thought I could get him here faster than they could come. And I'm pretty sure I did, so...”
Isaac turns on him, then. “At the risk of more serious damage to his body? There’s a reason stretchers are used. I ordered one sent the second I found out.”
“Again, don’t think things through from time to time. Hi, have you met me? Stiles Stilinski.” Stiles holds his hand out for Isaac to shake, but Isaac only stares at it.
It's not really just human or just Romulan, him doing that, but it's strange, the way that Scott second-guesses stuff like that and gets this...kind of vibe that Isaac always becomes a little more Romulan when he's stressed. Or around Stiles.
“Fair enough. Uh…” Stiles takes his hand back with this intimidated look, swallowing hard, like for a second there he was afraid Isaac might've gone for the shake, only to rip his arm off instead. “We’re here now, and you and your tattoos can fix him up nice and new, okay? Speaking of which, those things will never not be-” he grimaces, making a weird motion toward his own face. “I mean, you know, a doctor with tattoos is just…”
Isaac doesn’t even bother saying anything to that. His lip just curls up at him, probably vicious head-on, but Scott can only see it from the side.
“Guys,” he wheezes. “Dying here.”
Isaac snaps back to him fast and foregoes the rest of the tricorder scan, trying instead to slide Scott’s shirt up and get a better look at the wound, with his own eyes. It sticks to where the blood’s dried, though, and Scott seethes out a few hard breaths through his teeth, even as Isaac cups a warm, reassuring hand around the back of his neck.
“You know, what?” Stiles takes a huge step back, eyes rolling up toward the ceiling to just completely avoid the scene altogether - Isaac especially, probably, considering... “I just had the greatest idea. It involves me not being here. In fact, it involves me going to make sure Lydia got to her room okay, all the way on the other end of the ship. I think I’ll put it into practice. All the way on the other end of the ship.”
“Good,” Isaac says. Then, to Scott, in a gentler voice, “I have to cut your shirt off to see.”
Scott nods, frantic for whatever Isaac has to do to stop the pain. He’d cut it off himself, if he wasn’t afraid he’d black out and end up cutting something else off, instead.
“Okay, so it looks like you can handle the situation from here…” Stiles says, to no one, really. At least, Scott hopes he’s not looking for a conversation or confidence boost, right now? It’s definitely not the time.
Stiles ends up hanging around for another long minute, until Isaac has most of Scott’s shirt snipped away from the wound in small, patient pieces. After that, it’s not two seconds before he gets an eyeful, makes this terrible gagging sound and stumbles out of the med bay.
Scott can’t blame him. He hates being here, too, with all the weird smells and the feeling of impending death and how many bad memories get trapped in this place, with nowhere else to go. It’s kind of really shitty, how much he hates it, considering how often he winds up laid out on a cot anyway, on the wrong side of a tricorder.
It’s also really shitty that the person he’s been way into, the past few months, practically lives here, even on his off-hours. There’s not much opportunity to see him, sometimes, unless Scott's getting hurt - which is probably a bad silver lining, but at least it still is one?
Isaac pauses a second to urge Scott to lie back on the cot. Then he’s giving him this long, silent, parental look, if just to ask Scott how he got to be friends with Stiles in the first place or maybe to reprimand him for landing himself here again, so soon after the last time.
But he doesn’t say anything. And in the bizarre quiet of the bay, that’s way too loud.
Scott wraps his fingers tight in the shoulder of Isaac’s shirt, for something else to focus his desperation on than the rib sticking up through his skin. “I thought you’d have been waiting at the transporter pad?”
“I would’ve been, but,” Isaac smirks a little, bitterly, turning to try and grab the cleansing ray off the instrument tray, without disturbing Scott’s hand on him. But it’s just out of reach, even with those long fingers of his, and he has to untangle Scott from his sleeve with a shallow frown. “But I didn’t want anyone getting ideas. For your reputation…”
“What reputation? I don’t think they would’ve, anyway…? I’m hurt, you’re a doctor? Stiles still just thinks you hate him because you’re jealous he hangs out with Lydia.”
Isaac scowls. “Everyone isn’t Stiles… And I’m-not jealous of him.”
“Are you sure?” Scott doesn’t have to force his grin at that, despite Isaac pressing the ray against his wounds to start disintegrating away the blood and what shreds of the shirt didn't come off easily, in that light, pinching tingle he hasn’t ever quite gotten used to…even with the cool glide of disinfectant after it. Here he is with a rib basically sticking out of his chest, but somehow something much smaller makes him want to crawl out of his skin or abandon ship or something.
His hand finds its own way into Isaac’s shirt again, and he focuses harder on his smile, blinking back the sting in his eyes. “Are you? Because I-I kind of liked it?”
Isaac cocks a brow, but keeps his attention to the task at hand. “That so?”
“Yeah. It is.”
“I’ll have to remember that for later…” he mumbles so casually, Scott isn’t sure he even really heard what he said. But then Isaac licks this sharp leer onto his face, eyes still cast down.
Scott can’t help perking up at that, much to the resentment of his body. It's nice to know that even here, in these circumstances, he could get it up if he really wanted to. It's not like he hasn't thought about it, anyway, having sex down here. Mostly when Isaac's pulling double shifts or buried in lab results.
“Take it easy.” Isaac huffs a laugh, so close it skates over Scott’s skin, pricking up goosebumps. And Scott expects him to follow that up with something else equally teasing or promising or fun, especially in light of what he's just been through, but- “Under the blood and shirt, it doesn’t look too bad? I’ll set the rib and put you in the regenerator, but I want to take an ostreographic series to make sure there’s no other damage. Barring...any unforeseen results, you’ll have to take it slow for the next few days, but that’s it. Do you think you can do at least that little?”
No. Dude, no. Medical jargon. Obligations to rest. He seriously needs to stop getting hurt, or Isaac’ll never say anything else to him ever again.
“Do you?”
Scott nods, but it only takes a second under Isaac’s skeptical eyes for it to turn into a resigned shake, instead.
Isaac mimics him, shaking his head too.
“I could've guessed as much. Thanks for saving me the trouble of not believing you, though. Maybe I’ll just have to…” He purses his lips, considering his options for a minute, even though the brightness in his eyes gives away that he already knows exactly what he’s going to have to do. “I’ll just have to watch you like a true, full-blooded Romulan would. Won’t I?”
For some reason, that makes Scott’s cheeks burn and his stomach flip, his heart pound both quicker and harder than it had right before his rib snapped. And the look on Isaac's face doesn't calm any of it down, either.
It really never does
“Promise?” Scott asks
Isaac's smirk speaks for itself.
FAMILY PHOTOS
PAIRING: none, gen
RATING: G
LENGTH: 4200+ words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 08-22-12
SUMMARY: even though they worked together to stop Gerard and save Jackson, Scott still doesn't really trust Isaac. It becomes more of a concern when his mom invites Isaac to come stay with them.
When Scott's mom got an idea in her head, it was really hard to talk her out of it. It was also really hard to talk her into something, if she wasn't already sort of onboard or was in a bad mood. Which was pretty much the source of most of their arguments and why, even though Scott had told her almost everything - especially that he still had really mixed feelings about Isaac, and that Isaac was going to try and smooth things over with Derek, anyway - she had still insisted on him staying with them for a few days.
"At least until he gets things figured out. ...Or longer. If he wants," she’d said.
And she'd been weirdly happy about it, too.
Maybe it was a nurse thing. Or a mom thing.
Scott hadn't really known what it was that turned Isaac around, and it wasn't like he wasn't grateful for it, but he still had this pit in his stomach over the fact that if Isaac could change so fast for the better, what was to say he couldn't just as easily one-eighty again? And this time under the same roof as Scott's mom.
It would have been one thing if it was just Scott, by himself. Or if Isaac was over with Derek and Peter, doing whatever it was they were doing. Either of those options would’ve made a more even playing field. Scott didn't want to not trust him, and he didn't want Isaac having to spend any more time with the Hales than he had to - especially if he didn't really want to - but this was his mom. He couldn't be letting his guard down, even for someone who'd been there when he'd really needed him.
Things had started off relatively okay, though, with his mom and him giving Isaac a short tour of the house, really just to get him used to the layout and the pull-out sofa in the living room. Isaac had managed a smile the whole time and this kind of polite slouch, like he didn't want to go around intimidating Scott's mom or anything. He’d even given her a few compliments about the decorating, which had really made her perk up.
He’d been totally great.
But Scott's nerves were getting the best of him, now. Isaac had disappeared off to the bathroom about halfway through the three of them fixing dinner together - Scott's mom had looked so happy about that, too; it was nice to see her like that for a change, even if he didn’t really get it - but he was already almost done setting the table, and Isaac still hadn't come back.
The timer for the pasta went off.
"Would you go check on Isaac?" his mom said, as she hefted the pot up and rushed for the strainer in the sink.
"Mom, I can-" Scott started toward her, but before he could even make it halfway across the kitchen, she'd already gotten the pasta dumped out and the pot righted in a cloud of steam. He would've made it if he'd sped up, but he was trying not to do things like that around her. Not yet, at least. Not unless he had to.
He didn’t want to scare her, either.
"Please. It builds good upper-body strength." She set the pot down on a potholder and turned toward him, pushing her hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist, leaning heavy into the counter, like slinging the pasta had really taken it out of her. But she still had enough strength to raise an arm and flex for him; she had pretty big guns, too, considering she had to lift patients so much. He’d kind of forgotten that. A pot of pasta was probably nothing.
A werewolf wasn’t a pot of pasta, though.
"Go check and make sure he's okay."
"I'm sure he's fine, Mom."
"What if he got lost, Scott?"
His brow furrowed. "You're joking, right?"
"Of course I'm joking.” She picked up a stray potholder and pretended to swat it at him. “But go check on him. Please? For your mother? The woman who pushed-"
"Mom!"
She smiled. "That's my boy. Hurry up."
He couldn't help smiling back, going for the door, shaking his head. "Okay. But yell if you need anything, okay?"
"Don't worry. I'm sure I can wrangle a few meatballs without breaking anything!" she yelled after him.
He waited until he was out of the kitchen, with the door swinging shut behind him, to let his shoulders sew up. He'd have to tell her there really was no need to shout anymore.
Not that he minded, but... Save her the trouble.
Unless he was in trouble. Then she'd yell no matter what. And it'd just be, like, ten times worse because of it.
He needed to never get in trouble again.
In the hallway, he could hear the slow, steady pulse of Isaac's heartbeat even better, but it wasn't coming from the bathroom, like he'd assumed. It was-
in the living room?
Isaac’s smell got bolder as Scott rounded the stairs. Definitely the living room, then. Maybe he’d lain down to take a nap?
The second Scott saw him, though, he stopped dead in the doorway.
Isaac hadn’t heard him coming, if him tensing up and his heartbeat taking off all of a sudden said anything. But he didn't turn to face Scott, and Scott was kind of glad for it. He didn't know what to say.
He guessed, from the way Isaac was standing, he’d been looking at all the family photos on the back wall, the ones Scott hardly ever even looked at anymore. It was weird how you could get so used to something right out in plain sight that you just completely stopped seeing it, until someone else noticed it. And then you felt a little bad because you’d forgotten.
Isaac cast a sheepish glance over his shoulder, slouching down again. "Sorry, I-was just looking at your pictures."
Scott took that as invitation enough to come in, even though it was his house. "Yeah. My, uh, my parents used to take a lot of pictures when I was little."
"Is that your dad?" Isaac asked, pointing toward the one photo that was of Scott, his mom and his dad, all huddled together on a blanket at the beach. He'd had to stop his mom from trashing it, the day after his dad finally moved out, and he'd been the only one volunteering to hang it back it up with the rest of them, like it still was something special (he'd had to do it when she was at work, even, so she wouldn't notice right away). But even now he sometimes caught her staring at it, and he’d wonder if it wouldn't just have been better to get rid of it, like she’d wanted to in the first place. It didn't mean as much to him now as it used to.
But somehow, he thought it meant more to her now than it used to.
So he didn’t touch it.
"Yeah,” he nodded. “That's him."
"He dead?" Isaac didn't even hesitate.
"Uh, no. But," Scott rubbed along the back of his neck, could feel his heart pounding a little faster, too. "But I haven't really seen since I came back to live with my mom?"
Isaac nodded, more to himself.
Usually people followed that up with a 'why?,' but it was nice not to have to explain for once.
"Those people in that one below it are my grandparents. And my uncle and aunt and some of my cousins. On my mom's side. They live further south. We usually go to their houses for the holidays."
"We used to go to my grandparents' for the holidays, too,” Isaac said. “My...dad's mom and dad. But they passed away a while ago."
"Dude, that sucks."
"Yeah." This close, Scott could feel something about the way Isaac was standing that made him think any minute Isaac might reach forward and take the photos off the wall to hoard them. He had this impression of longing to him; Scott couldn’t explain it, how he just knew. "It's been so long, I hardly remember them. But that dog...at Dr. Deaton's, he looked like the one my grandma had. My dad wouldn't let us keep her, after they both died, though. I guess she went to the pound."
Scott put a hand on Isaac's shoulder. He could feel him - it wasn’t a flinch, but it was something - and he pulled his hand back fast, like it’d never been there. By the way Isaac tilted his face away, though, that somehow felt like it’d been the wrong reaction to have.
Scott thought about putting his hand back, but it was strange, all of a sudden. Isaac felt faraway, all of a sudden, even though they were only two feet apart.
"We could go see him, if you wanted,” Scott offered instead. “I’m meeting Stiles in the afternoon, but Deaton had to take off for a couple days, so I have to check in there, anyway. He got most of the animals cleared out, but Bear's still there."
"I'm supposed to go see Derek tomorrow afternoon, too." Isaac ducked his head. He was quiet a minute.
Scott took the opportunity to reach forward and straighten out one of the photos, not sure how it’d gotten crooked. Maybe his mom. Maybe him or Stiles slamming the front door too much.
In any case, it made Isaac’s heart throb.
"The morning's good," he said, to cover over it.
"Spaghetti's growing icicles, boys! Get it in gear!"
Isaac did really flinch at that.
Scott definitely had to talk to her about yelling.
^
Since the Lahey house wasn't much more than a mess of runaway heirs, open crime scenes, bad memories and bank foreclosures, they had to make do with what Scott had on hand. The McCalls were no strangers to making do, but it was still pretty funny how even Scott's biggest sleep shirt and pants were way too small for Isaac. It looked like he'd gone to the bathroom a kid and come back a teenager. Scott kind of couldn't stop looking at him and laughing about it, as he helped pull out the sofa bed, that night.
Even Isaac laughed too, eventually. After he’d gotten all red in the face.
But that wasn't why Scott stayed downstairs with him, until his mom had to yell for him to leave their guest alone and get to bed- you're too old for sleepovers!
Maybe it was part of it.
He still didn't really trust him, though. Not like he wanted to. They’d had a good dinner - a great dinner, judging by how much his mom had smiled - but that was just dinner. And the longer he could keep an eye on Isaac, the less he worried about his mom.
The longer he could keep an eye on him, the more chance he had to put his fears to rest.
^
They got through the night without incident. But not the vet visit. And it wasn't even one Scott had anticipated. Not seriously.
Scott'd left Isaac alone in the exam room with Bear for a few minutes, while he went to check on the rest of the animals and refresh their food dishes. It was against policy to leave them with strangers, but it probably was okay, just this once, in case Isaac wanted to cry or something; he'd seemed close to it yesterday, and considering what’d happened last time he saw Bear, it probably wasn't too out there to assume.
Besides, Scott hadn't felt any danger in him, not a smell, not a tick, not a claw stirring, nothing. He couldn’t trust him, but he could trust himself to know his own instincts, and it seemed okay.
He was almost done filling the bowls when he heard Bear whine, and then the crash of something falling into a bunch of metal that literally, like, rained down on the floor- probably the instrument tray Deaton kept prepped and ready twenty-four/seven, just in case.
"Shit!" Scott barked, dropping the bag of kibble and darting around to the exam room, where he found-
Isaac sprawled face-down on the floor in a mess of instruments, the metal tray angled up on his shoulder, and the tray holder tipped over on its head, wheels still spinning. Bear had jumped off the table and was starting to nose at Isaac’s neck, but he didn't budge.
It took Scott falling onto him fast and turning him over before it really sank in that Isaac's veins were all blackened - all of them - up through his face, in his hands and arms, along his abdomen where his shirt rode up a little. He had a few nicks, too, from where he’d fallen on the instruments, but they were closing fast.
"Holy shit. Crap-Isaac!" Scott shook him, but Isaac was like a bag of sand in his arms.
Bear started barking, throwing himself around in a frenzy. Isaac reeked like Gerard, like cancer; Bear was probably picking up on it, too.
"Isaac! Okay, okay," Scott got an arm free enough to wrestle his cell phone out of his back pocket and thumb up the address book.
He tried Deaton first. Straight to voicemail. It was a waste, but he left a message anyway, something that didn't even make sense as he said it, though it still made his heart beat faster and Bear bark louder. He’d probably get a call later, about Deaton being worried sick or that he was going to have to end his trip early if Scott really couldn’t handle the clinic on his own. But it was too late to care right now.
Derek was next on the list. Scott wasn’t expecting-
he actually picked up.
"Scott, what?"
"It's Isaac- He took away the pain of this dog in our clinic that has cancer, and now he's unconscious and his veins, they're all black! I, I don't know what to do!"
"What? Scott, slow down."
"Derek!"
In the background, Scott could hear footsteps coming close, and then Peter’s voice saying, "Give me that." It was only a second later that he was on the line instead, no signs of struggle except that somewhere far off Derek huffed about it.
"Not that I didn’t already hear you, Scott, but say again what's wrong with Isaac?"
"He tried to take the pain away from a dog with cancer, and now he's unconscious."
"Who taught you that trick? Alan?"
"Alan?" Scot asked, thrown for a second. “Oh! Dr. Deaton. Yeah, it was him. What do I do?!"
"Of course it was," the way Peter said it made Scott wish Deaton hadn't left town - or that he would just answer his phone next time. He hadn’t even known Peter knew Deaton, at least not well enough for first names. "Did he not also tell you to go easy with that little gift?"
"He told me, not- Peter, what'm I supposed to do!"
"Nothing. You do nothing," Peter said calmly. And it was Derek talking in the background now, asking him, 'What trick?' and 'What does he mean, Isaac took a dog's pain away?' 'What's he talking about?' Peter just spoke over him, "He'll be fine. He just bit off more than he could chew, as is the rite of all teenagers in the history of time. He'll probably be coming around very soon. And when he does, Scott?"
"What?"
"Tell him you can take pain, but you can't take someone's death. At least not that way."
Scott grimaced.
"We'll come pick him up. Besides, he should be with us right now. For pack bonding. In fact, you should be here, too, but I won't waste my breath."
"I can bring him over, after he comes to."
"There's no point. We're already on our way."
Scott opened his mouth to protest again, but Peter had already hung up on him.
It didn't really matter anyway because as soon as he pulled the phone away from his ear, Isaac groaned.
^
Scott held the fish bowl of dog treats out at Isaac, slumped over in the waiting room chair, his hands wringing his pants in pain, veins still a strange, sick gray, but fading fast.
"Want one?" Scott smiled.
Isaac lifted his head to see. He managed a slow grin of his own, snorting. "No, thanks."
"Suit yourself. I thought you might need to build up your strength. Deaton buys the gourmet stuff. It’s like people food. Probably better than people food, actually..." Scott turned to put the treats back how Deaton had had them, next to his card holder and the blank appointment pad on the counter. They smelled even more meaty, now that Scott’d had the bite, and he was tempted to sneak one, if just because it might’ve wigged Isaac out.
It wasn’t like he hadn't tried them before, anyway. Him and Stiles had popped a couple on a dare one day, when Deaton hadn't been looking. They’d just tasted like stale bacon cookies. Not the worst thing he'd ever voluntarily eaten on a dare.
"I'm-sorry. If I made you worry," Isaac mumbled behind him.
Scott swung around, brow furrowed. "Huh?"
Isaac didn't say anything for a second, just pinned his eyes to something on Scott's shirt. It made Scott fidget. He hated when people did that. If they stared long enough, he always started thinking there was a stain or hole or something he'd missed getting dressed; more often than not, there probably was. "I didn't think that would happen. I'm sorry if I-made you worry about me? I thought maybe I could fix him…"
"Oh, yeah." Scott looked down at his shirt to check. "No. No! It's cool, dude. No worries. You didn't know it was gonna happen."
"I'm sorry about Lydia, too. I…"
Scott's eyes snapped up to him.
Isaac was staring at his hands now, folded together in his lap, "I don't know what I was thinking." But Scott could see how his eyebrows rose, how he chewed at his lip. And he could feel the regret coming off Isaac slowly, in a struggle.
Down the street, Derek's Camaro whined around a turn.
"I, uh..." Scott smoothed a hand down the front of his shirt, anxious. "I was weird when I first got bit. Not-that you’re weird or anything, but… I kind of...I don’t know, wanted to kill everyone, for a minute? So…" He couldn't smile, but he felt like Isaac sort of needed him to. "Maybe since Gerard and Matt are gone, and Jackson isn't the kanima anymore, we can breathe a little easier. For a while, at least?"
Until Jackson started douching out again (dude, this time with werewolf powers) or Peter went bloodlust².
"Yeah," Isaac agreed softly, still looking at his hands.
The Camaro pulled to a squealing halt out front - the kind that screwed up Scott’s spine, and Isaac’s too, by the expression on his face - a seatbelt whipping back into its holster and one of the doors slamming open and shut before Derek had even cut the engine.
Isaac stood up fast, though he wobbled some.
Scott stamped back the temptation to go help him.
A second later, Peter and Derek appeared in the glass of the door, framed in like a family photo.
"That's the last time you ever drive that car," Derek grit out, as he shouldered past Peter holding the door open for him, welcome-bells jangling.
"What?" Peter raised his brows innocently enough, leering at Derek’s back. "Where’s the fun in driving a car like that if you can’t test its limits? I just wanted to see what it was capable of."
Scott couldn't help the way he went rigid, coming face to face with Peter again so soon, hearing him talk about testing limits and capabilities and how it just looked like he was steamrolling Derek all over again.
Scott glanced at Isaac to see how he was taking it in, make sure he wasn’t flipping out or panicking or doing that one-eighty Scott feared. For the most part, he seemed a little unsure of himself and the situation, like it was all still too new to really get a hold of, even having met Peter a couple times already. But he also seemed like he had a pretty good idea so far, and what holes there were, he was trusting his instincts and looking to Scott for cues to help fill in.
…Not really looking at Derek.
"Hello, Scott," Peter said, a small tilt to his head. Derek stood off to his side, silent, his face set in that defensive scowl he liked so much, watching Isaac not look at him.
“I’d say ‘long time, no see,’ but that’s not quite true anymore, is it?”
Scott didn't bother with an answer, and Peter didn’t really wait for one.
He just shifted toward Isaac, face open and bright. "All right then. Hi, Isaac. I heard you got a bit saintly on us. How are we feeling?"
It probably was impossible for Isaac not to pick up on how tense Scott and Derek were in Peter's presence, and sure enough, Scott could see how he was starting to mimic them in posture and stance. He did that slouching thing again, too, to make himself smaller. But when he spoke, he didn't sound scared at all - he even smirked a little, which had Scott frowning. "I was repaying a debt. Trying to."
Peter took that with a smirked of his own. "I appreciate people who pay their debts. What I appreciate even more is people who pay them with interest."
Isaac nodded once, to say he understood - or thought he did, maybe not how Peter had meant it - nothing else to add.
"Well, Scott," Peter turned back to him, completely ignoring the elephant of anger and past hurt in the room. "You've been a delightful host, as usual. Tell Alan I'm sorry I missed him. But it's time we got moving. Places to go, people to see. You know how living can be."
"Yeah. I know," Scott muttered low. He knew well, at least Peter’s definition.
With one last, lingering look around, Peter turned and, in formation, the three of them started back out the door, Peter first, then Derek, and Isaac trailing along behind them.
"Hey, Isaac," Scott said, lurching forward to snag a hand in his sleeve before he could get too far.
Isaac met his eyes, although for a second he seemed to catch on Scott’s fingers in his shirt, mouth sort of slack. Scott could smell that sense of longing again.
"I know you want to try and work on things with Derek, but...but you know you have a place here, if you want, right? With me and my mom, I mean. And Stiles. And Allison. Whatever we are. If Peter gets too-"
Isaac nodded, watching Scott's hand for a long second, not saying anything; it made Scott feel clammy with nerves, from the lack of trust or overstepping Isaac’s boundaries or…something.
But he didn’t pull back this time.
"I'll be back for dinner?" Isaac said, like he was asking permission.
"Yeah, right. Of course. I'll see when my mom gets off. Stiles might be over, too."
"Okay."
It was weirder than the photos and Isaac staying over and his mom being happy about it that it was hard to see Isaac go with Peter and Derek, then. Even though Scott let him leave without a fight, it still was hard. It didn't feel right. Peter was up there with Gerard, in terms of manipulating and sacrificing people for his own gain, and under Derek, Isaac had done things that he regretted now. As much as Scott was still on the fence about trusting him, he trusted them even less.
But it was Isaac's choice. He needed to learn to listen to his own instincts. Scott couldn’t be there every time, and he wouldn’t make Isaac do anything he didn’t want to do, even if Scott thought it was for the best.
Maybe all he really could do was make sure Isaac knew he had another option, if things got bad.
And maybe that's why his mom had been so happy to have Isaac over, in the first place. Scott could kind of remember his mom talking about seeing Isaac in the ER a few times, but she'd never really gone into detail about it and Scott had never really cared enough to remember what she said. Maybe she'd known about Isaac’s dad. Or at least had a good guess. She'd always given Scott hugs after she'd mentioned Isaac- he’d always squirmed out of them.
She must've known.
Scott followed behind Isaac a few feet, came out to stand on the front walk and watch as Peter pushed the passenger seat down for Isaac to duck into the back of the Camaro. Isaac moved without any hesitation, but once he’d gotten settled, he angled a look out at Scott, not bothering with a seatbelt.
Even as Peter pushed the passenger seat back and got in himself, Isaac was still looking.
Even as Peter shut the door and Isaac’s face became clouded with tinted glass and black siding, he was still looking.
Scott was looking, too. He stayed looking, long after the car had left.
BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN
PAIRING: none, gen
RATING: G
LENGTH: 4200+ words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 09-23-12
SUMMARY: after everything calms down, Isaac wants to go back to his house to get a few things. He asks Scott to go with him.
NOTES: I fancied this as something of a sequel to the above, but you don't have to read it that way at all.
“Thanks,” Isaac said to the passenger window, his voice bottomed-out, like he'd been building up to that one word so much, he’d stripped himself a little raw. “For agreeing to come with me to get the rest of my stuff. I didn’t-want Derek to come.”
Scott threw a quick glance over at him. Isaac was looking down at the handle on the car door, though, and there wasn’t much to read from the edges of his eye or his mouth, the cut of his nose. Scott could feel a block of defensiveness coming off of him, but that was pretty much always there, even when Isaac was putting on the badass act, and more than saying anything new about him, it said a lot about Scott. Because he didn’t like that sometimes the wall got worse around him, and he wasn’t sure what he was doing or not doing to Isaac to make him afraid of him. Now most of all.
"Dude, it's cool. No problem."
Scott had the urge to reach out and rub a hand along his back, but he remembered the few times he’d touched Isaac before, and while they hadn’t led to anyone getting messed up or Isaac suddenly avoiding him, there had always been this weirdness to them. So Scott had kind of developed this need for Isaac to come to him on his own terms.
He guessed maybe this was a start.
It was good that, even though he’d gone back to living with Derek and Peter, Isaac still wanted Scott around, wanted to trust him with stuff like this. Scott hadn’t seen Isaac’s room or Isaac’s memories, but he had seen that basement. He knew what the house meant to Isaac, if just for that alone. To be the one asked to come and relive it with him - that said something that relieved Scott to hear, although he’d never admit it to Isaac for obvious reasons.
He was relieved, too, that Derek had really gotten in a mood about no one going anywhere by themselves, with the alpha pack roaming around and Boyd and Erica having disappeared without a trace. Scott still didn’t consider himself part of Derek’s pack, not by a long shot, and he definitely didn’t care about what Derek did or didn’t want, but the order made sense, and he was pretty sure that without it, Isaac would’ve thought he had to go at this alone, when he really didn't have to. Even if he’d only invited Scott along out of some obligation to his alpha, at least someone would be there if he ended up needing it.
And if he didn't, Scott could just stay in the car or keep his mouth shut and help with the heavy lifting. No problem.
“You really don’t have to thank me for stuff like this. I’d do it for any of my friends.”
That perked Isaac’s head up from its soft droop, but he still didn’t look at Scott. And it made Scott a little self-conscious, if he’d said ‘friend’ too soon or something? Usually, he only worried about stuff like that with girls. Even then it was ‘girlfriend.’
For a beat, he wondered what Allison was up to. How she was doing. If she was okay. She hadn’t really been returning his calls or texts much, but he didn’t blame her.
“I’m not…I’m not trying to say I didn’t want to come or anything,” he started, guiding the car into Isaac and Jackson’s neighborhood, even as the wheel resisted and the chassis groaned, like it was ashamed to be coming into such a nice place. “But why didn’t you ask Derek to come with you? Was he okay with you asking me? Oh, tell me when to turn.”
Derek had brought him to the house that one time, and he thought maybe he could smell his way enough, if he put his window down and really tried, but he kind of wanted something about this to be normal. Just one friend driving another friend to his house. No gimmicks or weirdness or werewolf stuff for one freakin’ minute.
“He never really seems okay with anything he doesn’t come up with?” Isaac offered loosely, and Scott felt him angle toward him then, a lopsided grin on his face.
Scott grinned, too. It was pretty true.
“Keep going straight. He was actually fine with it. ...Relieved? Even. I told him about what happened when we first met, but he… I don’t know, he doesn’t really get it.”
But Scott did?
Suddenly, he wanted to just stop the car altogether, turn and pull Isaac across the console into a hug or throw his seatbelt off and rip out of the car. He settled on just frowning at the numbers counting up the houses; he remembered Jackson’s was 890, and Isaac lived across from him.
Had lived across from him. It was easier to focus on the small stuff, for a second.
“You think I’d get it?” he said, eventually, trying to shrug out the lock in his shoulders.
Isaac had picked up on the change in Scott’s demeanor and was quiet for a long minute himself, just fiddling with the pop-out cigarette lighter that no one ever used, in no hurry to answer.
His silence only made Scott feel worse because Isaac probably thought he’d said or done something wrong and didn’t want to mess it up even more than he already had. Even though he hadn't.
“I used to see your mom sometimes, down at the hospital.”
“Yeah, she mentioned that before.”
“Turn here.”
Scott was more than happy to do as he was told, noting the street name in case he’d ever need to come back. Stone Oak.
“She paid a lot of attention to me. When I was younger, I used to-just think she was like that for everyone? You know, a nurse. They’re…they’re supposed to be like that. Nice and caring, that’s what nurses are supposed to be. And then I thought, maybe she had some crush on me.” Isaac didn’t laugh at that, but Scott did, if just to encourage him on, even though he wasn’t sure he really wanted to hear this. “I think it was just a way to ignore the look she’d give me sometimes. Like she knew?” Isaac angled away again, to watch the houses pass by his window or to not miss the next turn. Maybe for other reasons.
Either way, Scott was a little glad for it.
“Sometimes people figure it out, even if you think you’re hiding it well.” That earned a soft, bitter laugh from Isaac, and Scott was so startled by it that he didn’t realize what ‘it’ was for a second. Isaac’s voice had gotten softer, too. Or just more careful, and there was something about the way he was holding himself, when Scott glanced over at him again, that made Scott uncomfortable in the power it gave him over Isaac. “But…usually people are really weird about it. Or, or they think they need to try and do everything for me or- that they know what I need to do, and they wonder why haven’t I already done it? Because it’s so easy. She didn’t. She didn’t make me feel cornered or stupid. So I figured maybe she knew? What it’s like..."
Scott could just make out Isaac’s face in the reflection off the passenger window, and he focused on that instead of focusing on what Isaac was implying or the way his heart had started to pick up its pace in anger, how it felt too big for his chest. He didn’t really know what he should’ve said, anyway. That Isaac was right? That his dad had had problems, too? That he still did? Scott didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t a big deal, and he for sure didn’t want it to be what they bonded over. And he didn’t want Isaac to feel like he somehow owed it to him to tell him anything, or to have Isaac hold out hope that Scott already knew the answers, just because he’d been dealt a test that was kind similar. Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t.
His dad had never locked him in a freezer or put him in the hospital. Not even close.
“Even if I’m wrong and you have no idea, I’d rather it be you than Derek.” Isaac tilted his face back toward him, and Scott made an effort to meet his eyes, even just for a second, because he knew Isaac wanted to be reassured. If he’d said all Isaac had just said, he’d have wanted to be reassured, too. It didn’t take werewolf senses to figure that one out. But being able to feel Isaac’s nervousness and smell the thickness of his sweat didn’t make it any more pleasant.
Scott wasn’t sure how much of what was coming off him Isaac could pick up on, either, worst of all his heartbeat. But he figured probably a lot. He needed some reassuring, too.
All of a sudden, Isaac was motioning out the windshield, where his house was coming up on the left.
Neither of them said anything else, those last few hundred feet.
^
It was hard not to picture the basement right away, when Isaac let Scott into his house. Or the kanima - Jackson - going for Allison. Being locked in the freezer. Seeing the scratch marks. Derek looming behind him, already knowing everything but stubborn, as freakin’ always, to really tell him much of anything.
It was hard not to look at Isaac and see those things too, for a second, even if Scott had never associated them with him before.
Isaac opened his mouth to say something, like he could feel Scott making the connection and he wanted to stop it or tell him it was okay, he was used to that kind of thing. But then he just frowned and, without a word, led Scott through the living room to the stairs. His room was the first one at the top, across from a bathroom that was dark and cold-smelling already, having only a small window and no one to use it in months; but it was pretty normal otherwise, just like the rest of the house.
Except for the basement.
And the fact that Isaac’s room didn’t have a door on it. The hinges were there, but that was it.
Scott got hung up on them long enough that Isaac answered the question he hadn’t even asked.
“My, uh…my dad, he-” he shrugged, “he didn’t really like not knowing what was going on in his house.”
Scott didn’t know why, but he nodded at that, as if it was just a normal, everyday kind of thing, and not something that deserved the, the frustration or-or anger or sadness or whatever it was making his body feel heavy and his insides sour, all of a sudden. There were a lot of things he could’ve said or done - a lot of things he wanted to say and do - but it didn’t feel right to be so pissed off about it if Isaac wasn’t acting pissed, first. And Scott didn’t want to make him mad, getting all worked up about it like he’d been there with him, saying things that Isaac had probably said to himself a thousand times already, opening all those cans of worms.
Coming here had been completely for Isaac. Whatever he needed or wanted, Scott would be. That was it. He didn’t need to go making it about his own outrage. Especially when he didn't know the whole story.
Besides, Mr. Lahey was dead. What was done was done. There wouldn’t be any more abuse.
But Scott knew well enough that that also meant there was no chance to get him the help he needed to fix things between him and Isaac. And if Scott knew anything else, he knew that no matter what his dad did, he still loved him; Isaac probably still loved his dad, too, and hadn't really been happy that he'd died, no matter what he'd done to him.
So Scott was even gladder he’d only nodded. If the positions were reversed, he wouldn’t have wanted Isaac going off about how bad his dad must’ve been. Even if he knew it was true.
Isaac turned and pulled the top drawer of his dresser open with a dry scrape, gnawing at one corner of his mouth. “This is my room,” he said, distractedly, reaching in to pull out handfuls of underwear and socks, before he thought better of it and got down on his knees, going for the space under his bed.
Scott took in the room, as Isaac yanked out box after box of comic books. It was pretty typical. In fact, it kind of reminded him of his own. Except neater. There were photos and magazine ads and posters on the walls, and a couple free-standing shelves of books and random stuff that probably meant something to Isaac. He had a desk in the far corner, under a wide, blinded window. A pair of sliding doors to a closet in another corner, covered in more ads and posters and a dart board without any darts. A big, green chair sat on one side of his bed, done out in a green-striped comforter, and on the other side was a wood nightstand with a lamp and a few more comic books.
Then Scott saw the acoustic guitar, hidden back in the gap between the nightstand and the wall.
“Whoa, you play?” he said, rounding the bed to slide it out. He regretted it immediately, not because of anything Isaac suddenly said or did, but because the guitar was taped up all over with duct tape. It had been smashed or dropped and put back together, but the neck was still loose in his fingers, and the body shifted when he got a hand under it. One of the strings came rebounding out against his knuckles with a high twinge.
It was already too late to put it back and pretend he'd never seen it, so he just looked down at Isaac, helpless.
“Sorry, I’ll put it ba-”
“It’s okay,” Isaac said, even though it didn’t feel like it was. His heartbeat had peaked over it at some point, even, but was coming back down. Slowly. “I don’t play. That’s my dad’s. He tried to teach me, but,” he went quiet a second, watching Scott lay it down on the bed, working his jaw around weirdly. “Wasn’t very good at it?”
“Oh. Hey, I could try to teach you?”
Isaac smiled at the guitar, but it was kind of a mean one, like Scott had just said something threatening.
“I mean it. If you wanted? I was pretty good at teaching Stiles, before he figured out he liked drums better. I have my guitar at home. We could jam sometime?”
Isaac's eyes flicked fast to him. “Really?”
“Sure,” Scott grinned. “We can work with this. Still looks pretty solid.” He reached down and tried to smooth out a bubble in one of the strips of tape, though it resisted. “I have some extra strings and stuff, too.”
The room grew silent as Isaac did the same to another piece, forgetting whatever it was he'd been digging under his bed for.
“…Child Services came after my dad did this,” he said, just as everything had sort of settled into this nice, warm peace.
Scott stilled. “Huh?”
“My dad just got angry about stuff. I don’t know, it was a biology test. I did really bad on it? And he came up here and broke some stuff.” Isaac’s mouth was turned down, but his tone was calm. Matter-of-fact. His heart wasn’t beating fast anymore, either, and there wasn’t that smell of sweat or fear. It seemed backward to Scott that he would be nervous in the car or even two seconds ago, but not now, talking about this. But that’s how it was. “I ended up going to the hospital. Your mom was there. And then Child Services came the next day.”
“My mom?”
Isaac hooked his fingers over the strings, plucking off a couple notes that were way out of tune. He nodded. “When he opened the door and they were standing there, my dad got this look on his face. I-I’d never, I don’t remember ever seeing him that scared before?”
His mom?
She’d been the one who’d called? Had she done that? Why hadn't she told Scott about it?
Maybe she had and he just hadn't been paying attention?
Maybe it was when he'd been over living with his dad, and she hadn't thought it was important enough a thing to tell him about in her every-other-day calls.
Suddenly, there was a loose, metallic jangle, and Isaac was shuffling back to make room for the large suitcase he was pulling out from under his bed. There was nothing in it, when he flipped the latches, except for a few more comic books in protector sleeves and some action figures. Somehow Scott had been expecting it to have been packed at the ready.
“Wait-what’d, why…if they came, why didn’t they take you away?”
Isaac climbed to his feet, burying the answer in the movement, “I lied to them.”
“What? Why?!” Scott couldn’t help himself asking, a gut reaction. “No, I mean...sorry. That’s not what I meant. You don’t have to tell me that, if you don't want to. Sorry. Man, I didn’t mean that.”
It was probably the same reason he’d gone to stay with his dad, freshmen year. Because he still loved him and wanted to be with him, even if it didn’t always seem like his dad felt the same way. And maybe Isaac believed in second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth chances just as badly as Scott did.
He watched Isaac’s shoulders sew up, his fingers squeezing the edges of the open drawer hard enough that it started to creak. He was doing that thing again, where he hid his eyes, and Scott hadn’t realized until now how much it inspired all these frustrated, confused things in him. Things that shouldn’t have been there. Things he couldn’t have described, if his life depended on it.
Isaac looked up at himself in the mirror above the dresser. His mouth was hung open a little, his breath more forced. “I don’t know?” he said, brow furrowing in confusion. “Maybe I, I guess I thought them visiting would be enough to scare him into stopping? Or I just, I couldn’t, it didn’t feel right, I couldn’t-”
“He was your dad.”
Isaac met Scott's eyes in the reflection.
^
Isaac took surprisingly little from his room. Really, just his suitcase, those few comic books and actions figures he hadn’t bothered taking out of it, a bunch of clothes from his dresser and closet, his iPod, the guitar and a small shoebox that had been taped in between the slats of his bed frame (Scott hadn’t asked what was in it). He would’ve taken his laptop, too, but it was nowhere to be found, so they figured the cops had confiscated it for evidence, in case the charges against Isaac had ever actually stuck.
Scott could probably ask Stiles to get it back for him, sometime. Maybe when he and his dad were on better terms.
They’d already gotten out the door, with the key in the lock, before Isaac pulled up short, setting his suitcase down, then the box on top of it.
“Forget something?”
“Yeah. You can leave the suitcase and stuff here.” Isaac made a loose gesture toward it and shouldered back inside. “I’ll get it when I come out.”
“It’s no problem. I’ll get it.”
“You don’t have to.”
And Isaac disappeared into the house, leaving Scott to try and out-nice the empty slice of living room through the cracked door.
After a second, he shrugged and went to take the guitar to the car first, careful to set it down in the space behind the driver’s seat, so it wouldn’t go flying on a turn or hard brake. And he kept his ear cocked for any weird noises in the house. There were some muffled cracks and loud, winding groans, but he figured maybe Isaac was just digging around for something in his closet or the basement, moving furniture to get at more secret boxes taped up underneath.
Not to mention Scott’s depth perception was still kind of bad, even five months in, and sometimes things that sounded big really weren’t. It might even just have been the house settling new, after having no one in it for so long. His mom had told him something like that, when he’d come back to live with her. She’d said the house was talking a lot more because it was happy he was there, the same as she was. He hadn’t believed it (about the house, at least), but it’d been nice to think it.
He’d just gotten one hand around the shoe box and the other through the suitcase handle, when he heard a crash so loud it made his stomach drop.
"Isaac?"
He peered into the house, washed out in shadows, looked at the dead couches and chairs in the living room, and the silent staircase a few feet beyond them, the side table just inside the door, with a lamp and a phone that had the cord cut and a couple old coupon books and mail inserts on it. He waited to hear Isaac scream, cry for help, another voice to clue him in that an alpha was here, anything. But-
There was another crash, like the house was imploding on itself or something, and then another, and Scott was dropping the box and careening through the door as the fourth broke across his face.
He shot up the stairs, but the fifth crash was definitely coming from the basement, and he whipped back down around into the hall so fast, he clipped his side on the banister.
“Damn it! Isaac!”
Grabbing at the pain in his ribs, he realized his claws were already out, his fangs not far behind, his eyes burning with over-sensitivity as he darted down the hall and through the huge hole he’d torn into the wall, trying to get to Allison that night. He was halfway down the basement stairs before the loud punch of Isaac’s heart and the sight stopped him cold.
Isaac stood stock still in the middle of a big mess. Scott remembered there having been junk all over the place, along the walls and in rows, almost a maze, seriously. But it had all been mowed down by parts of the freezer, like Isaac had taken it apart at the seams and thrown each piece in different directions. There was broken everything, everywhere, boxes upturned, dirty toys half buried, glass shards, furniture left in splinters, paintings speared through. And Isaac. Just standing in the middle of it all.
He had this horrible look on his face, his eyes wide and yellowed, his jaw jutted out around his fangs and the breath seething out of him, mouth cut down in an open frown. Blood dribbled off his knuckles, the only sound between their heartbeats, just a tinny, slow ping ping ping off the debris at his feet.
Scott ducked his head a second, if just to calm himself down, now that he could see Isaac was mostly okay. He took a few deep breaths to will away his own claws and fangs and eyes, but they wouldn’t go. He'd thought he’d gotten a pretty good handle on them lately, but they just wouldn't go, not now for some reason. Looking back up at Isaac only made him angrier, made his skin burn hotter where the changes had broken through him, his heart throbbing to catch up with Isaac’s.
Isaac pressed a shaking wrist to his mouth, just like he’d done at the clinic after he’d helped Bear. Except this time, there was blood smeared above his lip when he pulled his hand back and grinned against the tears in his eyes.
“…Sorry. Didn’t realize how much I wanted to do that.”
^
Out on the stoop later, Scott helped Isaac right the shoe box and put everything back in that’d come out when he’d dropped it. He tried not to look too closely at anything, to respect Isaac’s privacy, and for the most part, none of the stuff seemed personal enough or strange enough that Scott could even begin to guess what it meant or why Isaac had saved it, anyway. But there were a handful of polaroids that would’ve been easy to read, had not all but one fallen upside down on the walk, denying him the chance.
The one that was right-side-up was of Isaac on a bicycle, smiling like a little kid should always be smiling, but unlike Scott had ever seen the Isaac now smile. His dad was holding onto the back of the bike as he rocketed Isaac toward the camera, and he was smiling, too.
As Scott swept the pictures back into the box, he thought about hanging that one up at his house, with all the rest of the family photos - that it would look good there. He thought that Isaac would probably like that idea, too, but he didn’t know why. And it felt weird. So he didn’t offer.
Besides, Isaac didn’t live with him and his mom anymore. It didn’t make sense to keep one of his pictures at their house.
Except it kind of did. But he didn’t know why.