(We Will) Make Some Shelter (Gift for vlieger)
Title: (We Will) Make Some Shelter
Author: sandrine
Recipient: vlieger
Pairings: Scott/Isaac, hints of Derek/Stiles
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7,268
Warnings: canon typical violence, Scott being Scott, spoilers for all aired episodes
Summary: The summer after their sophomore year, Scott is trying to stay out of werewolf business. He thinks it's working out pretty well for him. Until it isn't.
Author's Notes: vlieger, thank you so much for your lovely prompts! We seem to like lots of similar things in this fandom. I had lots of fun writing this. Hope you enjoy! (Also, thanks to my lovely beta for all the cheerleading and the immense fun I had rewatching the entire show with you.)
(We Will) Make Some Shelter
It starts like this:
Isaac sliding onto the bench next to Scott, smirking at the way Scott looks at him with a dumbstruck expression that says he can't quite believe that Isaac is here, that he didn't run like he said he would.
"I came to win," he says, which maybe isn't quite the same as 'I came for you' but the meaning is there, buried under the certainty of the words and the cockiness of his smile.
They're in this together, and for the first time it feels like something resembling pack rather than just a bunch of misfits thrown together by chance and life-threatening situations. Isaac likes it, revels in the new, fragile sense of belonging. Scott does too, more than he'd like to admit.
Though, no, that's not it. Perhaps it starts before that.
"Because I trust you," Isaac tells Scott in the vet clinic, wide-eyed and disarmingly honest, and Scott's heart is beating a little faster and it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under him. He isn't sure what exactly he's done to warrant that kind of trust that has Isaac coming to him for advice, and yet there it is and he doesn't quite know what to do with it.
He wants to protest when Isaac says, "I don't have anyone." The reason he doesn't is because it wouldn't be fair on Isaac. To tell Isaac 'you have me' would be making him stay, forcing him into a fight that might get him killed, so Scott doesn't say anything.
And Isaac... Isaac seems to get it anyway, because against Scott's expectations and his own plans, he stays.
Or maybe it even starts like this:
"I don't want you to get hurt."
Scott's fingers brushing against Isaac's. His voice soft and insistent and full of concern, as if that's what they do, as if their relationship so far hasn't been one of threats and mistrust. As if caring is something that factors in easily.
It doesn't matter much when it starts or how, just that it does.
And then they fight the Kanima and Gerard Argent, and Scott puts his reckless secret plan into action. By some miracle it actually works and no one dies, even though Allison almost kills Isaac, and Scott says some stupid things that in hindsight are more hurtful and harsher than he meant them to be but he needed to say them anyway. And that's it. Isaac disappears into the night with Derek and his psycho uncle, Stiles slinks off when no one is looking, and Chris Argent gives the rest of them a lift home, and that's the last Scott sees of Isaac all summer.
He doesn't worry too much because frankly, he's too busy to even think about it.
He hangs out with Stiles a lot and they play lacrosse and Xbox and marathon Star Trek and generally enjoy not running for their lives and fighting snake creatures and dealing with werewolf business. Scott takes a break from working at the vet clinic because even though he kind of misses the puppies and he wouldn't mind the extra money, he just needs to stay away from everything for a while.
One weekend in late July, Scott's mom takes them on a trip to the sea, and in August there's an impromptu camping trip that Stiles kept saying would end in disaster because being alone in the woods at night was pretty much tempting fate. But nothing happens, and the noise in the bushes behind their tent that keeps Scott awake half the night turns out to be two mating hedgehogs.
Summer turns into fall. School is starting again in two weeks, and when Scott checks his cell phone late one night he realizes that he's written Allison, who's been away visiting distant relatives up in Washington who equal 'hunting' with 'having venison stew for dinner', forty-three text messages over the last couple of months. She's sent back three, the last one ten minutes ago with an ominous 'Back next week. We need to talk. A'
Scott doesn't know what to reply to that. He fiddles around listlessly with his phone while he's trying to come up with an answer that sounds neither pushy nor panicked, aimlessly switching between apps and scrolling through his contacts and messages when he spots Isaac's name and realizes that the last he heard from him was all the way back in June, and he doesn't even know if Isaac is still around or if he ended up leaving town like he planned.
He frowns and opens a new message, fingers hovering indecisively over the keyboard for a moment. 'hey, will u be back at school?' he writes. He kind of wants to apologize for not being in touch all summer, but he doesn't know how without either sounding like a douchebag or a girl. Isaac probably didn't even notice the accidental radio silence. Besides, it's not like Isaac made an effort to stay in touch, either.
He hits send, then returns to Allison's message and writes a quick, 'ok. can't wait to see you x'.
There's no reply to either message for an hour, and Scott falls into a restless, uneasy sleep with his phone still in his hand.
* * *
"Hey, have you heard from Isaac since the night with Jackson and Gerard?" he asks Stiles the next day while they're having a burger in the diner downtown. Neither Allison nor Isaac have replied to his texts.
"Have I-What? Why would I hear from Isaac? We're not exactly BFF's. I'm pretty sure the guy doesn't even have my number."
Scott frowns and absent-mindedly paints ketchup patterns on his plate with a French fry. "It's just... I texted him last night and asked if he'd be at school and he didn't reply."
Stiles blinks at him. "First of all - why are you even texting him? Okay, so maybe he turned out to be not a total psycho, but I haven't forgotten that he tried to kill Lydia and neither should you." He steals one of Scott's fries and stabs it accusingly in his direction before eating it. "And secondly, I thought you said you were done with all the pack business because you wanted a 'normal life'." The sarcastic little air quotes he makes with his fingers speak volumes about how successful he thinks Scott is going to be with this.
"Don't you think it's weird, though? That we haven't heard from any of them all summer?"
A weird expression flashes on Stiles' face, a sort of wince like he sometimes makes when his dad catches him at a place where he isn't supposed to be, and Scott can hear his heart rate spike up. He mentally rewinds the conversation and wonders if it was something he said, but Stiles' reaction doesn't really make sense. Until Stiles grimaces and says, "Yeah, well. I might have seen Derek. Once. Or maybe, like, three times?"
"What? But- seen him where? On the street?"
"More like, in my room. When he was climbing into the window at shit-o-clock in the morning telling me to research stuff. You know how he is. He gets all growly and sourwolfy and won't take 'I can't right now because I'm busy playing Angry Birds, come back some other time' for an answer."
That sounds like Derek, though it doesn't exactly leave Scott any less confused. "Research about what? And why didn't you tell me?"
Stiles blinks at him like he's the one not making any sense. "Dude. You were the one who told me you didn't want anything to do with pack business. I figured you didn't want to hear about it." He steals a few more fries from Scott's plate. "And anyway, I don't really know what's going on. It's not like Derek tells me anything. He just wanted me to research pack dynamics and stuff about Alphas. Do you think they're in trouble?"
"How am I supposed to know? I'm not the one hanging out with one of them," Scott says, his tone sharper than he intended, and the guilty expression on Stiles' face almost makes him feel bad in return. "Did Derek say anything about Isaac?"
Stiles snorts. "You remember Derek, right? Tall, dark and monosyllabic? He didn't say anything about anything. What's with your new interest in Isaac anyway?"
Scott shrugs uncomfortably. "I'm just worried." Before Stiles can question him further, Scott shoves his plate over towards him. "Hey, do you want the rest of my fries? I'm kind of not really hungry anymore."
For a moment, Stiles gives him the sort of narrow-eyed look that says that he knows what Scott is doing, and Scott wonders if instead of distracting him he only managed to make him more suspicious, but then Stiles starts shoving the food in his face and doesn't ask any more questions.
* * *
Scott sends another text.
'hey, are u ok? sorry i didn't keep in touch. needed some time away from werewolf stuff after that night.'
He figures that it doesn't really matter if apologizing for not talking to Isaac all summer is lame, as long as it makes Isaac more likely to reply.
* * *
It's two-thirty in the morning when a noise from outside wakes Scott up, tearing him brutally from a dream that slips his mind the second his eyes fly open. His first instinct is to grab for the baseball bat that he's sure has to be somewhere under his bed before he remembers that he's a werewolf and doesn't really need a weapon to fend off burglars because he pretty much is a weapon these days.
The window opens with a squeaky sound and a figure climbs through. Scott waits until they're all the way inside before he pounces, all claws and fangs and the full force of his weight sending the intruder crashing into the floor.
"Ow," Isaac says from underneath him, and Scott's hand freezes mid-air before his claws can tear into him.
"Dude, what the fuck?! I thought you were a burglar. I almost killed you!" His body isn't quite ready yet to come down from the adrenaline high.
Isaac rubs the back of his head, flinching at his own touch, and Scott realizes with a stab of guilt that he may have struck a bit harder than he intended. "Seriously? Werewolves, Kanimas and hunters, and you're worried about burglars? What did you think they were going to steal? Your lacrosse gear?"
Scott shrugs. "I didn't really think at all. I just heard a noise and freaked out."
Isaac looks at him like he's insane, and Scott gets it, he does. He's a werewolf. Random noises in the night should not freak him out. But these last couple of months have been so uneventful and safe that Scott may have forgotten that he can handle scary stuff now. He's about to explain that when the door bursts open and his mom comes in, kitchen knife clutched in her hand.
"Get away from my son!" she says, and her voice is almost steady despite the way her heart is thumping frantically like it's going to leap out of her chest any second. Scott feels at once embarrassed and proud, though the embarrassment wins out by a margin when he remembers that he's still wolfed out and sitting on top of Isaac. He lets his features shift back to human.
"It's okay, Mom. It's just Isaac."
Isaac offers a tiny sardonic wave and a lopsided smile. "Hi, Mrs. McCall. Good to see you again."
Scott scrambles to his feet and offers Isaac a hand to help him up. His mom frowns at them, but her heart rate is slowing down and her death grip on the knife loosens. "Why is Isaac climbing through your window at three in the morning? He could have taken the front door. During the day."
"It's probably some kind of emergency," Scott says, turning to Isaac and waiting for an explanation that will no doubt involve some kind of life-or-death situation and the inevitable end of his werewolf-free summer.
Isaac turns to Scott's mom and shrugs. "Not really," he says, looking far too unapologetic for someone who dropped unannounced through the window in the middle of the night. For a moment, Scott is legitimately scared for Isaac because his mom has a knife and he knows that she is not afraid to use it, but she just shakes her head and rolls her eyes.
"Okay. Great. You know, I wish this was the strangest situation I've wandered into during the last year or so, but it's really, really not. So... since no one is about to die, I'll just go back to bed. Try to be quiet. And don't break anything if you don't have to."
They both stare after her when she sets the knife down and walks off, and when she's out of sight, Isaac turns to Scott and says, "Your mom is kind of awesome." He sounds impressed, but also a little wistful and sad, and Scott abruptly remembers the sight of the freezer in the cellar of the Lahey house and he feels a little guilty, because even though he knows from first-hand experience that not every parent is as supportive as his mom, he's always kind of taken her for granted.
"She really is." He smiles at Isaac and sits down on the edge of the bed. "So, what's up? Did you just say that there was no emergency so my mom wouldn't worry?"
Isaac shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans, suddenly looking uncertain. It always sort of amazed Scott how Isaac goes from cocky and self-assured to shy and awkward within the blink of an eye, and he wonders if the attitude is perhaps just a facade he hides behind or if his moods are really that mercurial. "No, I just- You texted me, and I thought you wanted to see me. I guess I should have just called or something."
"No, it's okay," Scott quickly assures him. "I did want to see you. You just surprised me, that's all. I'm glad you're okay. I was worried because I hadn't heard from you since... you know. That night."
The air of awkwardness is still clinging to Isaac. "I hadn't heard from you either. And you made it pretty clear that night that you didn't want anything to do with us."
He sounds... hurt, and Scott frowns because this wasn't what he wanted at all. "That's not what I meant. Just... Gerard threatened to hurt my mom, and I had to do something. I didn't trust Derek. I can't trust him, not after everything."
"He's my Alpha," Isaac says, and there's something steely and hard in his voice that makes Scott wary to say anything bad about Derek, but at the same time, the expression on Isaac's face is sad and torn, like he's made his choice but hates the fact that there had to be a choice to begin with. All at once Scott realizes that this is exactly what it's like for Isaac, that it's Derek or him, and Isaac thinks that he can't have both. Scott hates that. He doesn't want to make Isaac choose between him and his Alpha, and not just because he's fairly sure that kind of choice won't fall in his favor.
"That doesn't mean we can't be friends," Scott says, but it sounds more like a question than a reassurance, and Isaac shrugs again.
"I don't know. You're not pack, and with the- It's complicated right now. We can't trust anyone who isn't with us."
"Why, what's going on? Is something-" His voice falters at the hard stare Isaac levels at him, and he rewinds the conversation to the part where Isaac just told him that they can't trust anyone outside of the pack. It stings more than Scott expected. "Right, you can't tell me."
Silence falls between them, stretching awkwardly until it seems to suck all the air out of the room. It's Scott who breaks it eventually.
"Just... be careful, okay? And if you need help, you can always come to me. Or call me or whatever."
Isaac nods, and the sad little smile he offers makes Scott's chest feel tight in a way that reminds him of his asthma attacks. "Sure. I'll see you at school, I guess. Tell your mom I'm sorry for waking her up."
Then he's gone, disappearing out of the window into the night without a sound, and Scott can't stop thinking that it's odd how he heard Isaac come in, but when he left it was almost entirely quiet.
He doesn't fall asleep for the rest of the night.
* * *
When Scott's phone goes off, he reaches for it so fast that he almost drops it, werewolf-reflexes or not, and he answers without bothering to check for the name on the display.
"Hey," he says, trying not to sound too excited and failing.
"Hi," Allison says on the other end of the line, and Scott realizes with a start that he'd completely forgotten that she said she would be back today.
"Oh. Allison. Hi. It's you," he says before he can stop himself. There's disappointment in his tone, and he doesn't understand why. He's been looking forward to hearing Allison's voice for months, and now that she's calling him he's not as happy as he thought he'd be. He tells himself that it's just nerves, that he's merely overwhelmed, because it would be ridiculous that he should be disappointed because it's Allison calling him and not Isaac. But he knows it probably sounded bad, so he tries again. "I forgot that you were back today."
And that's... possibly even worse. He wonders if he should just stop before he digs himself in any deeper.
"Am I interrupting something?" Allison asks, and Scott can't even tell if she's amused or serious.
"No, not at all. I'm glad you called." That's better. It's true, too. Whatever he expected when he picked up the phone, he is glad to hear from her after the lack of communication over the summer.
"Can I come over?" she says, and he's about to enthusiastically agree when she adds, "We need to talk, and I can't do this on the phone."
And for the first time he realizes what he should have noticed weeks ago, when she never replied to his texts and her scarce messages sounded stilted and impersonal, but it's only sinking in now: she's going to break up with him, for real this time, none of that 'taking a break' thing they've been doing whenever things got rough.
"Sure," he says, and he thinks he does a good job sounding upbeat and casual and not at all like he's about to cry because everyone seems to be leaving him.
* * *
"I'm going to stay out of this," Allison says. "All of it. Hunting, the werewolves, all the supernatural craziness that's going down. It got my mom killed, and Kate, and it drove just about every member of my family crazy. I feel like I'm going to be the next one and I don't want that. I want a normal life. I want to go to college and have fun and raise a family and not worry all the time that they'll be slaughtered. Maybe I'm not ever going to be as good at writing or painting or photography as I am with the crossbow, but I want to find out if maybe I can be good at something else other than killing because this isn't who I want to be."
They're sitting on the couch in the living room. Scott asked her to come up on his room with him, but she just shook her head and sat down and told him she wouldn't be long.
She looks different. Her hair is shorter and lighter, and there's a new kind of seriousness in her eyes - not the hard, focused look she had before the summer after her mom died, but none of the spark her gaze used to hold before that, either. It's like she grew up over the course of the last three months, became a whole new person who's not quite a stranger, but neither is she the girl Scott used to know.
And still, he can't stop himself from trying. "I'm going to try and stay out of it, too. I want to have a normal life as well."
Allison's smile is sad. "Oh, Scott. I know you want that. But that's not an option for you. I can walk away from it. Being an Argent... it's just a name. But you can't escape what you are. If you try run away, it's just going to follow you."
She presses a brief, chaste kiss to his cheek, and it feels like goodbye.
* * *
Stiles and Scott are up in his room, playing Halo, when Stiles suddenly sits up and pauses the game.
"What's wrong with you today? You're not usually this crap at this. Or are you intentionally losing so I'll feel better about myself?"
"What? No." Scott puts the controller down and flops backwards onto the bed. "I don't know. I'm just distracted, I guess. Allison broke up with me. For good. She says it's because even if I try to stay out of whatever shit is going down, I'll still be involved because I'm a wolf. And Isaac says we can't be friends because I'm not pack. It's like... whatever I do, I draw the short stick."
Stiles settles down next to him and they spend a few moments quietly lying side by side staring at the ceiling before inevitably, Stiles' need to fill every silence with words kicks in.
"Don't you think it's a little strange that you mentioned both of these things in one breath? Your girlfriend -the one you've been madly in love with for an entire year and spent a ridiculously long time convincing yourself and everyone else who wanted to hear it or not that you were meant to be with, despite the fact that she's basically the Juliet to your Romeo -breaking up with you, and a guy who you didn't even like until recently and who I'm fairly sure tried to kill everyone we like at some point, not wanting to hang out with you? That's not exactly the same level of heartbreak-inducing, at least not in my book."
Scott shrugs as well as he can while lying down. "It just sucks. All of it. People I care about keep walking out of my life, and I can't stop it."
"Hey, what I am? Chopped liver? I'm not going anywhere. Even though you tried to kill me during your first full moon, and I got beaten up to send you a message, and you failed as a best friend for keeping that totally awesome plan to defeat Gerard from me."
A smile tugs at the edges of Scott's mouth. "Sorry. And thanks. It's just... it's not the same." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the flash of hurt on Stiles' face and hurries to find a way to explain what he means, because the last thing he needs right now is to alienate Stiles. "You're my best friend, dude. Allison is... was my girlfriend. And Isaac... you know I don't really want to do the pack thing. I'm not an animal. I'm my own person. But when I'm with Isaac, it does feel like pack. And not in a bad way. Like, at all."
He doesn't know how to explain it because he doesn't really understand it himself, but Stiles doesn't look upset anymore so perhaps he gets it in a way that Scott doesn't. Which makes sense because Stiles probably knows more about pack dynamics than Scott does. He means to ask about it, but before he can, Stiles nudges his shoulder and sits up.
"Come on, let's keep playing. I want to enjoy the chance to kick your ass while you're busy moping."
* * *
It turns out that Allison wasn't wrong: no matter how hard Scott tries, he can't stay out of it.
Two nights before school starts, Isaac comes climbing through his window again, except that he doesn't so much climb in as fall in, and Scott's initial excitement over the fact that Isaac came to see him turns to horror when he notices the state Isaac is in. He's a mess of torn clothes, deep, bleeding gashes and broken bones, and none of his wounds appear to be healing. The only source of tentative relief is that Scott can't smell the sharp stench of wolfsbane on him, so at least he hasn't been poisoned. But his wounds should be mending themselves and they clearly aren't, his face contorted into an agonized grimace, and Scott quickly presses his hands against Isaac's skin to at least make the pain bearable.
"What happened? What's wrong with you, why aren't you healing?"
"Alpha wounds," Isaac mutters, and it clearly strains him to speak, but Scott has to ask because it makes no sense.
"What? You mean Derek did this?"
Despite the level of pain he's in, Isaac manages to raise his head and gives Scott a look that makes him want to unspeak his words. In hindsight, maybe his question was a little stupid. "Okay, fine. Not Derek. Another Alpha, then. Is there another pack in town? That's why Derek had Stiles researching pack dynamics, right?"
Scott notices that the smaller, shallower cuts among Isaac's wounds are beginning to close, but very, very slowly, at a rate that makes Scott suspect that it’ll take hours if not days until Isaac will have fully healed.
"You can't just lie here on the floor. Come on, let's get you on the bed." When he receives a weak nod in response, Scott half-carries, half-drags Isaac, who isn't much of a help and keeps wincing in a way that makes Scott want to apologize for causing him additional pain, up onto the mattress.
"It's an Alpha pack," Isaac says, once he's stretched out on the bed. Scott is so distracted by massive bloodstains on the floor and all over his bedding, which he knows his mom is going to freak out about, that it takes a few seconds until Isaac's words sink in.
"What do you mean, an Alpha pack? Like, a pack made of Alphas?"
Isaac nods. He looks like he's about to pass out, and even though Scott has a million questions, he figures they can wait until the morning. "Do you need anything? Should I get my mom to look at your wounds?"
Isaac shakes his head, his eyes falling shut. "They'll heal. Just need some time. Just- Would you-" It takes him visible effort to look at Scott. "Lay down with me? It helps. Being around you."
Scott's mouth is suddenly dry and his heart is beating fast. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever you need."
Isaac is out like a light by the time Scott makes it to the bed. He lies down on the other side, a good foot of distance between them until Isaac makes a whiny, pained little sound that physically makes Scott ache, and he turns on his side and scoots over, curling his body against Isaac's and sneaking an arm over the other boy's chest while trying not to touch the worst of the wounds.
It should be awkward and uncomfortable, but it's not, and Scott falls asleep more quickly and deeply than he did all summer.
* * *
In the morning when he wakes up, their limbs are tangled and Isaac's face is tucked against his shoulder. He must have been awake already and likely noticed the change in Scott's breathing, because he raises his head a little and looks at Scott. The worst of the damage seems to have healed overnight, at least where Scott can see it, and even though he still has blood all over him, most of it smells old and dried.
"Hey." Scott's voice sounds sleep-rough and scratchy. Without thinking, he reaches out and brushes a stain of reddish-brown off Isaac's cheek with his thumb, though he only succeeds in making even more of a mess, smearing it wide. He laughs when Isaac makes a disgusted face. "How do you feel?"
"Like someone who got mauled by a pack of Alphas," Isaac quips, a fleeting sharp smile on his lips. It's gone as quick as it came, replaced by a grim expression. "We kind of underestimated them. They've been kind of toying with us for a while now, but last night was different. They weren't messing about. For a while, I didn't think I'd make it out of there alive."
"Where the hell was Derek? Isn't he supposed to protect you?"
"He did," Isaac says, and Scott wants to tell him to stop defending Derek just because he's his Alpha, but before he can get a word in, Isaac presses on. "He was. He and Peter were still fighting the Alphas when I got away. That's why I came here."
"Oh." Scott has no idea what else to say to that.
As much as he hates that Isaac got hurt, he likes that Isaac come to him when he was hurt, even if he isn't sure if it means that Isaac trusts Scott despite his declarations not to be part of the pack, or if Isaac simply had no other place to hide.
"You know, I meant what I said. You can always come to me." He's said it before, the other night, but it feels different this morning with Isaac's blood-streaked face inches from his and the warmth of his body against Scott's. They're both speaking in hushed tones even though they're alone in the house, but words carry a different weight, like a vow and a declaration of... something.
"I know," Isaac says. He holds Scott's gaze with clear, serious eyes, and for some reason that moment feels more intimate than falling asleep together or waking up tangled together, leaving Scott lightheaded and nervous. He wants to make some funny little joke to dissolve the tension, but he can't think of anything, can't even make himself break eye contact.
Isaac's gaze flickers from Scott's eyes to his mouth, just for a split second, but long enough for Scott to notice, even though his body picks up on it before his brain can, his heartbeat speeding up and his stomach fluttering with butterflies.
Oh, he thinks, just before Isaac leans in and slants their mouths together.
At first, all Scott tastes is the metallic, bitterly sweet flavor of old blood. It's so strong that Scott almost recoils, but then Isaac's mouth opens against his and his tongue slides along Scott's lips and he instinctively kisses back. The tang of blood fades and underneath, Scott can taste minty toothpaste and apples and the telltale sense of nervousness that belies the confident way Isaac's tongue explores his mouth.
Isaac's fingers tangle in Scott's hair as the kiss grows harder, almost desperate, and Scott presses closer, as if he was trying to crawl inside Isaac's skin.
It's Isaac who pulls away first, breathing heavily. He looks wide-eyed and panicked, reminding Scott of a wounded, cornered animal, and he wants to reach out and calm him down. Before he can do anything, Isaac has slipped out of the bed.
"I can't. I- I have to go," he says, and then he's out of the window, leaving Scott more confused than ever.
* * *
Stiles is still asleep, passed out face-down and fully clothed on his bed, when Scott climbs through his window.
"Stiles, wake up," he says, poking Stiles until he wakes up with a start, only Scott's werewolf reflexes saving him from being hit in the face by flailing arms.
"I'm awake, I'm awake! What is it? Are they attacking? Did you bring weapons? Oh my God, we're going to die, aren't we?"
Scott frowns. "Dude. Calm down. We're good. No one is attacking us."
Instead of calming Stiles down, his words seem to make him angry. "Then why did you wake me up? Not cool, man. I need my beauty sleep. I really need to put up a sign on my window, 'No climbing in unless there's a life-or-death situation.'"
"It's almost noon."
Stiles sighs, sitting up and running a hand over his face. He does look tired, dark shadows under reddened eyes and pale skin, and Scott has the absurd notion that he wouldn't really be surprised if Stiles told him one day that he's secretly a vampire. "I didn't get much sleep last night. There was a... situation."
"With the Alpha pack?" Scott hazards a guess. "Dude, how come you know more about this shit than I do?"
"Didn't we already have this discussion last week? You don't know because you didn't want to know. And anyway, you seem to know enough."
"Isaac came by last night. He was hurt pretty badly. It took him hours to fully heal." None of what he's saying seems to surprise Stiles much, and he wonders just how much Stiles has been involved in pack business without telling him. He's dying to ask about the Alpha pack, about who they are and what they want. It's important that he knows these kinds of things because it sounds like a pretty serious situation and the lives of people he cares about could be - are, considering the state Isaac was in when he fell through Scott's window last night - in danger, so staying out of it is not going to be an option anymore.
When he opens his mouth to start asking questions, though, the first thing that blurts out is, "Isaac kissed me. And then he ran off. I don't know what that means, or what to do about it. I didn't even know that he liked me like that. Or that I liked him like that. I mean, I love Allison, but Isaac- I just don't understand how we got there."
Stiles looks like he doesn't know whether to start laughing or yelling at Scott.
"This is kind of amazing," he says, and for a moment he sounds serious, so Scott finds himself nodding in response before he realizes that Stiles is being sarcastic. "As in, I'm utterly amazed by your ability to pick just about the worst timing in the world to have a sexual crisis. But hey, don't let a territorial war with a pack of evil Alphas who want to rip every werewolf in this town to shreds interrupt your angsting about whether or not you like Isaac better than Allison. Man, you need to reconsider your priorities."
Scott winces, and even though he keeps telling Stiles not to make dog jokes, right at this moment he does feel a little like a kicked puppy. It's not that Stiles doesn't have a point, but sometimes his sarcasm bypasses funny and flies right towards abrasive, and this is one of the days when Scott can't really handle it as well as he usually does, and he needs to forcibly keep his wolf in check because it kind of wants to sink its claws into Stiles.
Instead, he clenches his teeth, looks at the floor, and tries to focus. He used to think of Allison when he needed to calm down, but right now he can't think of anything but Isaac and the way he looked at him this morning. It shouldn't soothe him, considering that Isaac had almost died last night, but for some reason it does because Isaac came to him. Even badly injured and unable to defend himself, even with Scott not in Derek's pack, Isaac came to him, and that has to mean something.
"I'm not having a sexual crisis," Scott says when he feels calm enough to speak. "This isn't about Allison. And I get it - bad things are happening, the Alpha pack is dangerous. Trust me, it's hard to miss that, with Isaac bleeding all over my bed last night. I just hate that I don't know what's going on or what I can do about it when people who matter to me are getting hurt."
Stiles gives him a long, hard look and then he kind of slumps, impossibly looking even more tired than he already did five minutes ago. "Okay, okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to lay into you. I'm an asshole. I'm just... really fucking tired. And frustrated. And kind of scared."
Scott sits down next to him, his anger evaporating at the sight of Stiles' hollow expression. "You're not an asshole. Sorry for leaving you to deal with this shit alone. I should have known that staying out of it wasn't going to work."
"Yeah, you totally should have," Stiles says, but the way he's grinning at Scott takes the sting out of his words. He gives Scott a friendly little shove. "So. Isaac, huh?"
Scott grins back. "Shut up."
* * *
"You need to fix things with Derek," Stiles had told him, later. Scott had wanted to protest and remind Stiles that it was only a few months ago that it was Stiles who had suggested killing Derek when they thought Lydia might be the Kanima.
The problem is, he knows that Stiles is right. He doesn't like it, but when it comes down to it, they're all on the same side, and if Scott continues to try to stay out of it, he will eventually lose Isaac like he already lost Allison, and he might just lose Stiles as well, and that's only the best case scenario, because they might well all die if they stand divided.
He hopes he'll be able to maybe speak to Isaac first, but when he approaches the Hale house, it figures that the person waiting for him is just about the last person he wants to see.
"Well, well, well, the prodigal son returns." Peter is leaning against the porch with his arms crossed in front of his chest and a smug smile on his face that Scott is itching to wipe off. With his claws. "I'd say I'm surprised to see you, but to be fair, I already thought you were here this morning because when Isaac returned, he smelled so much like you that I thought you were actually in the room with us."
"Someone had to keep him safe, as you obviously couldn't," Scott bites back, and he feels his features rippling as the wolf struggles to come out. This isn't going as well as he'd planned. Maybe it was a mistake coming here. Maybe he isn't ready to do this.
Peter laughs. "At least we were trying, while you were hiding at home pretending that you're still human."
Before Scott can respond with either words or claws - he likes to think it would be the former, but he can't make any promises - the front door of the house is flung open and Derek steps outside.
"Enough," he says, obviously more to Peter than Scott because his eyes flash red when he looks at his uncle.
Peter snorts. "Spoilsport," he mutters under his breath, but that's as far as his rebellion goes. Without a further word, he slinks off, leaving Scott alone with Derek, sizing each other up over the distance, each of them waiting for the other one to say something.
Because Scott was the one who came here, and also because he's pretty sure that no one can outlast Derek Hale in a contest of who can stay silent the longest, he figures he might as well get it over with.
"Here's the thing: I don't trust you. I don't know if I can. You made a shitload of terrible choices and ninety percent of the time, you're a total butthole, and I'm not entirely sure if keeping the people I care about from becoming collateral damage even factors into your plans. But Isaac trusts you. I guess Stiles does too, though I don't know why he even would. And I trust them."
Derek keeps staring at him, mouth set in a hard line, until Scott becomes fidgety waiting for a response. He kind of put himself out there, and he can see Derek turning him down and telling him to go home and stay out of it, just to spite him for how he handled the Gerard Argent thing.
Finally, a resigned sort of expression breaks through Derek's stony mask. "Look, Scott, I don't know how much Isaac and Stiles told you, but things are about to get very, very ugly, and I can't be worrying about one of my own stabbing me in the back or just randomly going off and doing their own thing. You're either with us or against us."
Scott thinks of Isaac, and knows that this is no choice at all. "Then I'm with you."
"Be sure about it," Derek warns, his voice steely. "There's no changing your mind later this time. If you're pack, you're not going to walk away from it."
Scott isn't sure if it's a threat or if Derek is just stating a fact, but when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter. He shrugs. "I'm not going to walk."
He holds Derek's gaze, trying to convey the fact that he's serious, that he's here for good, until Derek nods, and Scott feels absurdly, overwhelmingly relieved, as if his refusal to join the pack had been some terrible weight resting on his shoulders.
* * *
Isaac is fast asleep in one of the charred rooms of the house, on a dusty couch with dirty stains all over its grey cushions. He looks relaxed in sleep and much younger, and Scott is pleased to see that all of his injuries have mended themselves by now.
When he crouches down next to him, Isaac stirs. He smiles when he sees Scott. "You came."
Scott grins, momentarily tempted to throw Isaac's words back at him and tell him, I came to win, but after everything he heard about the Alpha pack, he's not quite confident enough to say it and mean it, and he figures he might as well tell the truth.
"I came for you," he says, and his smile softens.
Isaac ducks his head, blushing, and Scott can't help but think it's kind of adorable and it makes him want to lean in and kiss him. When Isaac looks back up, though, he looks somber. "I'm sorry. I know you didn't want to get involved. I didn't mean to drag you back into it."
Scott shrugs. "It's okay. I think I was fooling myself anyway, thinking I could stay out of it."
"I hated not being able to see you and tell you things, this summer," Isaac admits, and Scott feels a little guilty because he hadn't even noticed that Isaac was keeping his distance until last week.
He offers a sheepish little smile. "It took me a little longer to get there, but I missed you too."
Isaac laughs and reaches for Scott's hand, entwining their fingers. "It's okay. I know you're a bit slow. I like you anyway."
He yelps when Scott snatches the ragged old pillow from under his head and throws it at his face.
* * *
End.
Author: sandrine
Recipient: vlieger
Pairings: Scott/Isaac, hints of Derek/Stiles
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7,268
Warnings: canon typical violence, Scott being Scott, spoilers for all aired episodes
Summary: The summer after their sophomore year, Scott is trying to stay out of werewolf business. He thinks it's working out pretty well for him. Until it isn't.
Author's Notes: vlieger, thank you so much for your lovely prompts! We seem to like lots of similar things in this fandom. I had lots of fun writing this. Hope you enjoy! (Also, thanks to my lovely beta for all the cheerleading and the immense fun I had rewatching the entire show with you.)
(We Will) Make Some Shelter
It starts like this:
Isaac sliding onto the bench next to Scott, smirking at the way Scott looks at him with a dumbstruck expression that says he can't quite believe that Isaac is here, that he didn't run like he said he would.
"I came to win," he says, which maybe isn't quite the same as 'I came for you' but the meaning is there, buried under the certainty of the words and the cockiness of his smile.
They're in this together, and for the first time it feels like something resembling pack rather than just a bunch of misfits thrown together by chance and life-threatening situations. Isaac likes it, revels in the new, fragile sense of belonging. Scott does too, more than he'd like to admit.
Though, no, that's not it. Perhaps it starts before that.
"Because I trust you," Isaac tells Scott in the vet clinic, wide-eyed and disarmingly honest, and Scott's heart is beating a little faster and it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under him. He isn't sure what exactly he's done to warrant that kind of trust that has Isaac coming to him for advice, and yet there it is and he doesn't quite know what to do with it.
He wants to protest when Isaac says, "I don't have anyone." The reason he doesn't is because it wouldn't be fair on Isaac. To tell Isaac 'you have me' would be making him stay, forcing him into a fight that might get him killed, so Scott doesn't say anything.
And Isaac... Isaac seems to get it anyway, because against Scott's expectations and his own plans, he stays.
Or maybe it even starts like this:
"I don't want you to get hurt."
Scott's fingers brushing against Isaac's. His voice soft and insistent and full of concern, as if that's what they do, as if their relationship so far hasn't been one of threats and mistrust. As if caring is something that factors in easily.
It doesn't matter much when it starts or how, just that it does.
And then they fight the Kanima and Gerard Argent, and Scott puts his reckless secret plan into action. By some miracle it actually works and no one dies, even though Allison almost kills Isaac, and Scott says some stupid things that in hindsight are more hurtful and harsher than he meant them to be but he needed to say them anyway. And that's it. Isaac disappears into the night with Derek and his psycho uncle, Stiles slinks off when no one is looking, and Chris Argent gives the rest of them a lift home, and that's the last Scott sees of Isaac all summer.
He doesn't worry too much because frankly, he's too busy to even think about it.
He hangs out with Stiles a lot and they play lacrosse and Xbox and marathon Star Trek and generally enjoy not running for their lives and fighting snake creatures and dealing with werewolf business. Scott takes a break from working at the vet clinic because even though he kind of misses the puppies and he wouldn't mind the extra money, he just needs to stay away from everything for a while.
One weekend in late July, Scott's mom takes them on a trip to the sea, and in August there's an impromptu camping trip that Stiles kept saying would end in disaster because being alone in the woods at night was pretty much tempting fate. But nothing happens, and the noise in the bushes behind their tent that keeps Scott awake half the night turns out to be two mating hedgehogs.
Summer turns into fall. School is starting again in two weeks, and when Scott checks his cell phone late one night he realizes that he's written Allison, who's been away visiting distant relatives up in Washington who equal 'hunting' with 'having venison stew for dinner', forty-three text messages over the last couple of months. She's sent back three, the last one ten minutes ago with an ominous 'Back next week. We need to talk. A'
Scott doesn't know what to reply to that. He fiddles around listlessly with his phone while he's trying to come up with an answer that sounds neither pushy nor panicked, aimlessly switching between apps and scrolling through his contacts and messages when he spots Isaac's name and realizes that the last he heard from him was all the way back in June, and he doesn't even know if Isaac is still around or if he ended up leaving town like he planned.
He frowns and opens a new message, fingers hovering indecisively over the keyboard for a moment. 'hey, will u be back at school?' he writes. He kind of wants to apologize for not being in touch all summer, but he doesn't know how without either sounding like a douchebag or a girl. Isaac probably didn't even notice the accidental radio silence. Besides, it's not like Isaac made an effort to stay in touch, either.
He hits send, then returns to Allison's message and writes a quick, 'ok. can't wait to see you x'.
There's no reply to either message for an hour, and Scott falls into a restless, uneasy sleep with his phone still in his hand.
* * *
"Hey, have you heard from Isaac since the night with Jackson and Gerard?" he asks Stiles the next day while they're having a burger in the diner downtown. Neither Allison nor Isaac have replied to his texts.
"Have I-What? Why would I hear from Isaac? We're not exactly BFF's. I'm pretty sure the guy doesn't even have my number."
Scott frowns and absent-mindedly paints ketchup patterns on his plate with a French fry. "It's just... I texted him last night and asked if he'd be at school and he didn't reply."
Stiles blinks at him. "First of all - why are you even texting him? Okay, so maybe he turned out to be not a total psycho, but I haven't forgotten that he tried to kill Lydia and neither should you." He steals one of Scott's fries and stabs it accusingly in his direction before eating it. "And secondly, I thought you said you were done with all the pack business because you wanted a 'normal life'." The sarcastic little air quotes he makes with his fingers speak volumes about how successful he thinks Scott is going to be with this.
"Don't you think it's weird, though? That we haven't heard from any of them all summer?"
A weird expression flashes on Stiles' face, a sort of wince like he sometimes makes when his dad catches him at a place where he isn't supposed to be, and Scott can hear his heart rate spike up. He mentally rewinds the conversation and wonders if it was something he said, but Stiles' reaction doesn't really make sense. Until Stiles grimaces and says, "Yeah, well. I might have seen Derek. Once. Or maybe, like, three times?"
"What? But- seen him where? On the street?"
"More like, in my room. When he was climbing into the window at shit-o-clock in the morning telling me to research stuff. You know how he is. He gets all growly and sourwolfy and won't take 'I can't right now because I'm busy playing Angry Birds, come back some other time' for an answer."
That sounds like Derek, though it doesn't exactly leave Scott any less confused. "Research about what? And why didn't you tell me?"
Stiles blinks at him like he's the one not making any sense. "Dude. You were the one who told me you didn't want anything to do with pack business. I figured you didn't want to hear about it." He steals a few more fries from Scott's plate. "And anyway, I don't really know what's going on. It's not like Derek tells me anything. He just wanted me to research pack dynamics and stuff about Alphas. Do you think they're in trouble?"
"How am I supposed to know? I'm not the one hanging out with one of them," Scott says, his tone sharper than he intended, and the guilty expression on Stiles' face almost makes him feel bad in return. "Did Derek say anything about Isaac?"
Stiles snorts. "You remember Derek, right? Tall, dark and monosyllabic? He didn't say anything about anything. What's with your new interest in Isaac anyway?"
Scott shrugs uncomfortably. "I'm just worried." Before Stiles can question him further, Scott shoves his plate over towards him. "Hey, do you want the rest of my fries? I'm kind of not really hungry anymore."
For a moment, Stiles gives him the sort of narrow-eyed look that says that he knows what Scott is doing, and Scott wonders if instead of distracting him he only managed to make him more suspicious, but then Stiles starts shoving the food in his face and doesn't ask any more questions.
* * *
Scott sends another text.
'hey, are u ok? sorry i didn't keep in touch. needed some time away from werewolf stuff after that night.'
He figures that it doesn't really matter if apologizing for not talking to Isaac all summer is lame, as long as it makes Isaac more likely to reply.
* * *
It's two-thirty in the morning when a noise from outside wakes Scott up, tearing him brutally from a dream that slips his mind the second his eyes fly open. His first instinct is to grab for the baseball bat that he's sure has to be somewhere under his bed before he remembers that he's a werewolf and doesn't really need a weapon to fend off burglars because he pretty much is a weapon these days.
The window opens with a squeaky sound and a figure climbs through. Scott waits until they're all the way inside before he pounces, all claws and fangs and the full force of his weight sending the intruder crashing into the floor.
"Ow," Isaac says from underneath him, and Scott's hand freezes mid-air before his claws can tear into him.
"Dude, what the fuck?! I thought you were a burglar. I almost killed you!" His body isn't quite ready yet to come down from the adrenaline high.
Isaac rubs the back of his head, flinching at his own touch, and Scott realizes with a stab of guilt that he may have struck a bit harder than he intended. "Seriously? Werewolves, Kanimas and hunters, and you're worried about burglars? What did you think they were going to steal? Your lacrosse gear?"
Scott shrugs. "I didn't really think at all. I just heard a noise and freaked out."
Isaac looks at him like he's insane, and Scott gets it, he does. He's a werewolf. Random noises in the night should not freak him out. But these last couple of months have been so uneventful and safe that Scott may have forgotten that he can handle scary stuff now. He's about to explain that when the door bursts open and his mom comes in, kitchen knife clutched in her hand.
"Get away from my son!" she says, and her voice is almost steady despite the way her heart is thumping frantically like it's going to leap out of her chest any second. Scott feels at once embarrassed and proud, though the embarrassment wins out by a margin when he remembers that he's still wolfed out and sitting on top of Isaac. He lets his features shift back to human.
"It's okay, Mom. It's just Isaac."
Isaac offers a tiny sardonic wave and a lopsided smile. "Hi, Mrs. McCall. Good to see you again."
Scott scrambles to his feet and offers Isaac a hand to help him up. His mom frowns at them, but her heart rate is slowing down and her death grip on the knife loosens. "Why is Isaac climbing through your window at three in the morning? He could have taken the front door. During the day."
"It's probably some kind of emergency," Scott says, turning to Isaac and waiting for an explanation that will no doubt involve some kind of life-or-death situation and the inevitable end of his werewolf-free summer.
Isaac turns to Scott's mom and shrugs. "Not really," he says, looking far too unapologetic for someone who dropped unannounced through the window in the middle of the night. For a moment, Scott is legitimately scared for Isaac because his mom has a knife and he knows that she is not afraid to use it, but she just shakes her head and rolls her eyes.
"Okay. Great. You know, I wish this was the strangest situation I've wandered into during the last year or so, but it's really, really not. So... since no one is about to die, I'll just go back to bed. Try to be quiet. And don't break anything if you don't have to."
They both stare after her when she sets the knife down and walks off, and when she's out of sight, Isaac turns to Scott and says, "Your mom is kind of awesome." He sounds impressed, but also a little wistful and sad, and Scott abruptly remembers the sight of the freezer in the cellar of the Lahey house and he feels a little guilty, because even though he knows from first-hand experience that not every parent is as supportive as his mom, he's always kind of taken her for granted.
"She really is." He smiles at Isaac and sits down on the edge of the bed. "So, what's up? Did you just say that there was no emergency so my mom wouldn't worry?"
Isaac shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans, suddenly looking uncertain. It always sort of amazed Scott how Isaac goes from cocky and self-assured to shy and awkward within the blink of an eye, and he wonders if the attitude is perhaps just a facade he hides behind or if his moods are really that mercurial. "No, I just- You texted me, and I thought you wanted to see me. I guess I should have just called or something."
"No, it's okay," Scott quickly assures him. "I did want to see you. You just surprised me, that's all. I'm glad you're okay. I was worried because I hadn't heard from you since... you know. That night."
The air of awkwardness is still clinging to Isaac. "I hadn't heard from you either. And you made it pretty clear that night that you didn't want anything to do with us."
He sounds... hurt, and Scott frowns because this wasn't what he wanted at all. "That's not what I meant. Just... Gerard threatened to hurt my mom, and I had to do something. I didn't trust Derek. I can't trust him, not after everything."
"He's my Alpha," Isaac says, and there's something steely and hard in his voice that makes Scott wary to say anything bad about Derek, but at the same time, the expression on Isaac's face is sad and torn, like he's made his choice but hates the fact that there had to be a choice to begin with. All at once Scott realizes that this is exactly what it's like for Isaac, that it's Derek or him, and Isaac thinks that he can't have both. Scott hates that. He doesn't want to make Isaac choose between him and his Alpha, and not just because he's fairly sure that kind of choice won't fall in his favor.
"That doesn't mean we can't be friends," Scott says, but it sounds more like a question than a reassurance, and Isaac shrugs again.
"I don't know. You're not pack, and with the- It's complicated right now. We can't trust anyone who isn't with us."
"Why, what's going on? Is something-" His voice falters at the hard stare Isaac levels at him, and he rewinds the conversation to the part where Isaac just told him that they can't trust anyone outside of the pack. It stings more than Scott expected. "Right, you can't tell me."
Silence falls between them, stretching awkwardly until it seems to suck all the air out of the room. It's Scott who breaks it eventually.
"Just... be careful, okay? And if you need help, you can always come to me. Or call me or whatever."
Isaac nods, and the sad little smile he offers makes Scott's chest feel tight in a way that reminds him of his asthma attacks. "Sure. I'll see you at school, I guess. Tell your mom I'm sorry for waking her up."
Then he's gone, disappearing out of the window into the night without a sound, and Scott can't stop thinking that it's odd how he heard Isaac come in, but when he left it was almost entirely quiet.
He doesn't fall asleep for the rest of the night.
* * *
When Scott's phone goes off, he reaches for it so fast that he almost drops it, werewolf-reflexes or not, and he answers without bothering to check for the name on the display.
"Hey," he says, trying not to sound too excited and failing.
"Hi," Allison says on the other end of the line, and Scott realizes with a start that he'd completely forgotten that she said she would be back today.
"Oh. Allison. Hi. It's you," he says before he can stop himself. There's disappointment in his tone, and he doesn't understand why. He's been looking forward to hearing Allison's voice for months, and now that she's calling him he's not as happy as he thought he'd be. He tells himself that it's just nerves, that he's merely overwhelmed, because it would be ridiculous that he should be disappointed because it's Allison calling him and not Isaac. But he knows it probably sounded bad, so he tries again. "I forgot that you were back today."
And that's... possibly even worse. He wonders if he should just stop before he digs himself in any deeper.
"Am I interrupting something?" Allison asks, and Scott can't even tell if she's amused or serious.
"No, not at all. I'm glad you called." That's better. It's true, too. Whatever he expected when he picked up the phone, he is glad to hear from her after the lack of communication over the summer.
"Can I come over?" she says, and he's about to enthusiastically agree when she adds, "We need to talk, and I can't do this on the phone."
And for the first time he realizes what he should have noticed weeks ago, when she never replied to his texts and her scarce messages sounded stilted and impersonal, but it's only sinking in now: she's going to break up with him, for real this time, none of that 'taking a break' thing they've been doing whenever things got rough.
"Sure," he says, and he thinks he does a good job sounding upbeat and casual and not at all like he's about to cry because everyone seems to be leaving him.
* * *
"I'm going to stay out of this," Allison says. "All of it. Hunting, the werewolves, all the supernatural craziness that's going down. It got my mom killed, and Kate, and it drove just about every member of my family crazy. I feel like I'm going to be the next one and I don't want that. I want a normal life. I want to go to college and have fun and raise a family and not worry all the time that they'll be slaughtered. Maybe I'm not ever going to be as good at writing or painting or photography as I am with the crossbow, but I want to find out if maybe I can be good at something else other than killing because this isn't who I want to be."
They're sitting on the couch in the living room. Scott asked her to come up on his room with him, but she just shook her head and sat down and told him she wouldn't be long.
She looks different. Her hair is shorter and lighter, and there's a new kind of seriousness in her eyes - not the hard, focused look she had before the summer after her mom died, but none of the spark her gaze used to hold before that, either. It's like she grew up over the course of the last three months, became a whole new person who's not quite a stranger, but neither is she the girl Scott used to know.
And still, he can't stop himself from trying. "I'm going to try and stay out of it, too. I want to have a normal life as well."
Allison's smile is sad. "Oh, Scott. I know you want that. But that's not an option for you. I can walk away from it. Being an Argent... it's just a name. But you can't escape what you are. If you try run away, it's just going to follow you."
She presses a brief, chaste kiss to his cheek, and it feels like goodbye.
* * *
Stiles and Scott are up in his room, playing Halo, when Stiles suddenly sits up and pauses the game.
"What's wrong with you today? You're not usually this crap at this. Or are you intentionally losing so I'll feel better about myself?"
"What? No." Scott puts the controller down and flops backwards onto the bed. "I don't know. I'm just distracted, I guess. Allison broke up with me. For good. She says it's because even if I try to stay out of whatever shit is going down, I'll still be involved because I'm a wolf. And Isaac says we can't be friends because I'm not pack. It's like... whatever I do, I draw the short stick."
Stiles settles down next to him and they spend a few moments quietly lying side by side staring at the ceiling before inevitably, Stiles' need to fill every silence with words kicks in.
"Don't you think it's a little strange that you mentioned both of these things in one breath? Your girlfriend -the one you've been madly in love with for an entire year and spent a ridiculously long time convincing yourself and everyone else who wanted to hear it or not that you were meant to be with, despite the fact that she's basically the Juliet to your Romeo -breaking up with you, and a guy who you didn't even like until recently and who I'm fairly sure tried to kill everyone we like at some point, not wanting to hang out with you? That's not exactly the same level of heartbreak-inducing, at least not in my book."
Scott shrugs as well as he can while lying down. "It just sucks. All of it. People I care about keep walking out of my life, and I can't stop it."
"Hey, what I am? Chopped liver? I'm not going anywhere. Even though you tried to kill me during your first full moon, and I got beaten up to send you a message, and you failed as a best friend for keeping that totally awesome plan to defeat Gerard from me."
A smile tugs at the edges of Scott's mouth. "Sorry. And thanks. It's just... it's not the same." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the flash of hurt on Stiles' face and hurries to find a way to explain what he means, because the last thing he needs right now is to alienate Stiles. "You're my best friend, dude. Allison is... was my girlfriend. And Isaac... you know I don't really want to do the pack thing. I'm not an animal. I'm my own person. But when I'm with Isaac, it does feel like pack. And not in a bad way. Like, at all."
He doesn't know how to explain it because he doesn't really understand it himself, but Stiles doesn't look upset anymore so perhaps he gets it in a way that Scott doesn't. Which makes sense because Stiles probably knows more about pack dynamics than Scott does. He means to ask about it, but before he can, Stiles nudges his shoulder and sits up.
"Come on, let's keep playing. I want to enjoy the chance to kick your ass while you're busy moping."
* * *
It turns out that Allison wasn't wrong: no matter how hard Scott tries, he can't stay out of it.
Two nights before school starts, Isaac comes climbing through his window again, except that he doesn't so much climb in as fall in, and Scott's initial excitement over the fact that Isaac came to see him turns to horror when he notices the state Isaac is in. He's a mess of torn clothes, deep, bleeding gashes and broken bones, and none of his wounds appear to be healing. The only source of tentative relief is that Scott can't smell the sharp stench of wolfsbane on him, so at least he hasn't been poisoned. But his wounds should be mending themselves and they clearly aren't, his face contorted into an agonized grimace, and Scott quickly presses his hands against Isaac's skin to at least make the pain bearable.
"What happened? What's wrong with you, why aren't you healing?"
"Alpha wounds," Isaac mutters, and it clearly strains him to speak, but Scott has to ask because it makes no sense.
"What? You mean Derek did this?"
Despite the level of pain he's in, Isaac manages to raise his head and gives Scott a look that makes him want to unspeak his words. In hindsight, maybe his question was a little stupid. "Okay, fine. Not Derek. Another Alpha, then. Is there another pack in town? That's why Derek had Stiles researching pack dynamics, right?"
Scott notices that the smaller, shallower cuts among Isaac's wounds are beginning to close, but very, very slowly, at a rate that makes Scott suspect that it’ll take hours if not days until Isaac will have fully healed.
"You can't just lie here on the floor. Come on, let's get you on the bed." When he receives a weak nod in response, Scott half-carries, half-drags Isaac, who isn't much of a help and keeps wincing in a way that makes Scott want to apologize for causing him additional pain, up onto the mattress.
"It's an Alpha pack," Isaac says, once he's stretched out on the bed. Scott is so distracted by massive bloodstains on the floor and all over his bedding, which he knows his mom is going to freak out about, that it takes a few seconds until Isaac's words sink in.
"What do you mean, an Alpha pack? Like, a pack made of Alphas?"
Isaac nods. He looks like he's about to pass out, and even though Scott has a million questions, he figures they can wait until the morning. "Do you need anything? Should I get my mom to look at your wounds?"
Isaac shakes his head, his eyes falling shut. "They'll heal. Just need some time. Just- Would you-" It takes him visible effort to look at Scott. "Lay down with me? It helps. Being around you."
Scott's mouth is suddenly dry and his heart is beating fast. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever you need."
Isaac is out like a light by the time Scott makes it to the bed. He lies down on the other side, a good foot of distance between them until Isaac makes a whiny, pained little sound that physically makes Scott ache, and he turns on his side and scoots over, curling his body against Isaac's and sneaking an arm over the other boy's chest while trying not to touch the worst of the wounds.
It should be awkward and uncomfortable, but it's not, and Scott falls asleep more quickly and deeply than he did all summer.
* * *
In the morning when he wakes up, their limbs are tangled and Isaac's face is tucked against his shoulder. He must have been awake already and likely noticed the change in Scott's breathing, because he raises his head a little and looks at Scott. The worst of the damage seems to have healed overnight, at least where Scott can see it, and even though he still has blood all over him, most of it smells old and dried.
"Hey." Scott's voice sounds sleep-rough and scratchy. Without thinking, he reaches out and brushes a stain of reddish-brown off Isaac's cheek with his thumb, though he only succeeds in making even more of a mess, smearing it wide. He laughs when Isaac makes a disgusted face. "How do you feel?"
"Like someone who got mauled by a pack of Alphas," Isaac quips, a fleeting sharp smile on his lips. It's gone as quick as it came, replaced by a grim expression. "We kind of underestimated them. They've been kind of toying with us for a while now, but last night was different. They weren't messing about. For a while, I didn't think I'd make it out of there alive."
"Where the hell was Derek? Isn't he supposed to protect you?"
"He did," Isaac says, and Scott wants to tell him to stop defending Derek just because he's his Alpha, but before he can get a word in, Isaac presses on. "He was. He and Peter were still fighting the Alphas when I got away. That's why I came here."
"Oh." Scott has no idea what else to say to that.
As much as he hates that Isaac got hurt, he likes that Isaac come to him when he was hurt, even if he isn't sure if it means that Isaac trusts Scott despite his declarations not to be part of the pack, or if Isaac simply had no other place to hide.
"You know, I meant what I said. You can always come to me." He's said it before, the other night, but it feels different this morning with Isaac's blood-streaked face inches from his and the warmth of his body against Scott's. They're both speaking in hushed tones even though they're alone in the house, but words carry a different weight, like a vow and a declaration of... something.
"I know," Isaac says. He holds Scott's gaze with clear, serious eyes, and for some reason that moment feels more intimate than falling asleep together or waking up tangled together, leaving Scott lightheaded and nervous. He wants to make some funny little joke to dissolve the tension, but he can't think of anything, can't even make himself break eye contact.
Isaac's gaze flickers from Scott's eyes to his mouth, just for a split second, but long enough for Scott to notice, even though his body picks up on it before his brain can, his heartbeat speeding up and his stomach fluttering with butterflies.
Oh, he thinks, just before Isaac leans in and slants their mouths together.
At first, all Scott tastes is the metallic, bitterly sweet flavor of old blood. It's so strong that Scott almost recoils, but then Isaac's mouth opens against his and his tongue slides along Scott's lips and he instinctively kisses back. The tang of blood fades and underneath, Scott can taste minty toothpaste and apples and the telltale sense of nervousness that belies the confident way Isaac's tongue explores his mouth.
Isaac's fingers tangle in Scott's hair as the kiss grows harder, almost desperate, and Scott presses closer, as if he was trying to crawl inside Isaac's skin.
It's Isaac who pulls away first, breathing heavily. He looks wide-eyed and panicked, reminding Scott of a wounded, cornered animal, and he wants to reach out and calm him down. Before he can do anything, Isaac has slipped out of the bed.
"I can't. I- I have to go," he says, and then he's out of the window, leaving Scott more confused than ever.
* * *
Stiles is still asleep, passed out face-down and fully clothed on his bed, when Scott climbs through his window.
"Stiles, wake up," he says, poking Stiles until he wakes up with a start, only Scott's werewolf reflexes saving him from being hit in the face by flailing arms.
"I'm awake, I'm awake! What is it? Are they attacking? Did you bring weapons? Oh my God, we're going to die, aren't we?"
Scott frowns. "Dude. Calm down. We're good. No one is attacking us."
Instead of calming Stiles down, his words seem to make him angry. "Then why did you wake me up? Not cool, man. I need my beauty sleep. I really need to put up a sign on my window, 'No climbing in unless there's a life-or-death situation.'"
"It's almost noon."
Stiles sighs, sitting up and running a hand over his face. He does look tired, dark shadows under reddened eyes and pale skin, and Scott has the absurd notion that he wouldn't really be surprised if Stiles told him one day that he's secretly a vampire. "I didn't get much sleep last night. There was a... situation."
"With the Alpha pack?" Scott hazards a guess. "Dude, how come you know more about this shit than I do?"
"Didn't we already have this discussion last week? You don't know because you didn't want to know. And anyway, you seem to know enough."
"Isaac came by last night. He was hurt pretty badly. It took him hours to fully heal." None of what he's saying seems to surprise Stiles much, and he wonders just how much Stiles has been involved in pack business without telling him. He's dying to ask about the Alpha pack, about who they are and what they want. It's important that he knows these kinds of things because it sounds like a pretty serious situation and the lives of people he cares about could be - are, considering the state Isaac was in when he fell through Scott's window last night - in danger, so staying out of it is not going to be an option anymore.
When he opens his mouth to start asking questions, though, the first thing that blurts out is, "Isaac kissed me. And then he ran off. I don't know what that means, or what to do about it. I didn't even know that he liked me like that. Or that I liked him like that. I mean, I love Allison, but Isaac- I just don't understand how we got there."
Stiles looks like he doesn't know whether to start laughing or yelling at Scott.
"This is kind of amazing," he says, and for a moment he sounds serious, so Scott finds himself nodding in response before he realizes that Stiles is being sarcastic. "As in, I'm utterly amazed by your ability to pick just about the worst timing in the world to have a sexual crisis. But hey, don't let a territorial war with a pack of evil Alphas who want to rip every werewolf in this town to shreds interrupt your angsting about whether or not you like Isaac better than Allison. Man, you need to reconsider your priorities."
Scott winces, and even though he keeps telling Stiles not to make dog jokes, right at this moment he does feel a little like a kicked puppy. It's not that Stiles doesn't have a point, but sometimes his sarcasm bypasses funny and flies right towards abrasive, and this is one of the days when Scott can't really handle it as well as he usually does, and he needs to forcibly keep his wolf in check because it kind of wants to sink its claws into Stiles.
Instead, he clenches his teeth, looks at the floor, and tries to focus. He used to think of Allison when he needed to calm down, but right now he can't think of anything but Isaac and the way he looked at him this morning. It shouldn't soothe him, considering that Isaac had almost died last night, but for some reason it does because Isaac came to him. Even badly injured and unable to defend himself, even with Scott not in Derek's pack, Isaac came to him, and that has to mean something.
"I'm not having a sexual crisis," Scott says when he feels calm enough to speak. "This isn't about Allison. And I get it - bad things are happening, the Alpha pack is dangerous. Trust me, it's hard to miss that, with Isaac bleeding all over my bed last night. I just hate that I don't know what's going on or what I can do about it when people who matter to me are getting hurt."
Stiles gives him a long, hard look and then he kind of slumps, impossibly looking even more tired than he already did five minutes ago. "Okay, okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to lay into you. I'm an asshole. I'm just... really fucking tired. And frustrated. And kind of scared."
Scott sits down next to him, his anger evaporating at the sight of Stiles' hollow expression. "You're not an asshole. Sorry for leaving you to deal with this shit alone. I should have known that staying out of it wasn't going to work."
"Yeah, you totally should have," Stiles says, but the way he's grinning at Scott takes the sting out of his words. He gives Scott a friendly little shove. "So. Isaac, huh?"
Scott grins back. "Shut up."
* * *
"You need to fix things with Derek," Stiles had told him, later. Scott had wanted to protest and remind Stiles that it was only a few months ago that it was Stiles who had suggested killing Derek when they thought Lydia might be the Kanima.
The problem is, he knows that Stiles is right. He doesn't like it, but when it comes down to it, they're all on the same side, and if Scott continues to try to stay out of it, he will eventually lose Isaac like he already lost Allison, and he might just lose Stiles as well, and that's only the best case scenario, because they might well all die if they stand divided.
He hopes he'll be able to maybe speak to Isaac first, but when he approaches the Hale house, it figures that the person waiting for him is just about the last person he wants to see.
"Well, well, well, the prodigal son returns." Peter is leaning against the porch with his arms crossed in front of his chest and a smug smile on his face that Scott is itching to wipe off. With his claws. "I'd say I'm surprised to see you, but to be fair, I already thought you were here this morning because when Isaac returned, he smelled so much like you that I thought you were actually in the room with us."
"Someone had to keep him safe, as you obviously couldn't," Scott bites back, and he feels his features rippling as the wolf struggles to come out. This isn't going as well as he'd planned. Maybe it was a mistake coming here. Maybe he isn't ready to do this.
Peter laughs. "At least we were trying, while you were hiding at home pretending that you're still human."
Before Scott can respond with either words or claws - he likes to think it would be the former, but he can't make any promises - the front door of the house is flung open and Derek steps outside.
"Enough," he says, obviously more to Peter than Scott because his eyes flash red when he looks at his uncle.
Peter snorts. "Spoilsport," he mutters under his breath, but that's as far as his rebellion goes. Without a further word, he slinks off, leaving Scott alone with Derek, sizing each other up over the distance, each of them waiting for the other one to say something.
Because Scott was the one who came here, and also because he's pretty sure that no one can outlast Derek Hale in a contest of who can stay silent the longest, he figures he might as well get it over with.
"Here's the thing: I don't trust you. I don't know if I can. You made a shitload of terrible choices and ninety percent of the time, you're a total butthole, and I'm not entirely sure if keeping the people I care about from becoming collateral damage even factors into your plans. But Isaac trusts you. I guess Stiles does too, though I don't know why he even would. And I trust them."
Derek keeps staring at him, mouth set in a hard line, until Scott becomes fidgety waiting for a response. He kind of put himself out there, and he can see Derek turning him down and telling him to go home and stay out of it, just to spite him for how he handled the Gerard Argent thing.
Finally, a resigned sort of expression breaks through Derek's stony mask. "Look, Scott, I don't know how much Isaac and Stiles told you, but things are about to get very, very ugly, and I can't be worrying about one of my own stabbing me in the back or just randomly going off and doing their own thing. You're either with us or against us."
Scott thinks of Isaac, and knows that this is no choice at all. "Then I'm with you."
"Be sure about it," Derek warns, his voice steely. "There's no changing your mind later this time. If you're pack, you're not going to walk away from it."
Scott isn't sure if it's a threat or if Derek is just stating a fact, but when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter. He shrugs. "I'm not going to walk."
He holds Derek's gaze, trying to convey the fact that he's serious, that he's here for good, until Derek nods, and Scott feels absurdly, overwhelmingly relieved, as if his refusal to join the pack had been some terrible weight resting on his shoulders.
* * *
Isaac is fast asleep in one of the charred rooms of the house, on a dusty couch with dirty stains all over its grey cushions. He looks relaxed in sleep and much younger, and Scott is pleased to see that all of his injuries have mended themselves by now.
When he crouches down next to him, Isaac stirs. He smiles when he sees Scott. "You came."
Scott grins, momentarily tempted to throw Isaac's words back at him and tell him, I came to win, but after everything he heard about the Alpha pack, he's not quite confident enough to say it and mean it, and he figures he might as well tell the truth.
"I came for you," he says, and his smile softens.
Isaac ducks his head, blushing, and Scott can't help but think it's kind of adorable and it makes him want to lean in and kiss him. When Isaac looks back up, though, he looks somber. "I'm sorry. I know you didn't want to get involved. I didn't mean to drag you back into it."
Scott shrugs. "It's okay. I think I was fooling myself anyway, thinking I could stay out of it."
"I hated not being able to see you and tell you things, this summer," Isaac admits, and Scott feels a little guilty because he hadn't even noticed that Isaac was keeping his distance until last week.
He offers a sheepish little smile. "It took me a little longer to get there, but I missed you too."
Isaac laughs and reaches for Scott's hand, entwining their fingers. "It's okay. I know you're a bit slow. I like you anyway."
He yelps when Scott snatches the ragged old pillow from under his head and throws it at his face.
* * *
End.