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“Isaac!” Stiles groaned. “How could you? I thought you loved me!” He was whining, but still grinning even as he complained.
“But I do love… shooting you in the face with my guns,” Isaac laughed.
“Rude,” Stiles replied. “Just you wait, buddy, there’s a revenge kill on the horizon for you.”
“Is that a hint that I’m your current contract?” Stiles could hear the smirk in Isaac’s voice.
“No, I’ve got George Washington right now.” He paused a moment and they both said, “The Dandy,” together, laughing like idiots.
There was quiet between them as they hunted their respective targets, but the silence was comfortable and amicable. Even without having Isaac right next to him, he knew that Isaac felt the same way. Sure, the flirting was still awful (on both their parts), but they were both in the know now and they both were working toward the same goal - or at least Stiles hoped they were.
He still couldn’t believe what it was like to read Isaac’s Facebook message. So many emotions ran through his brain at once while he read those words - relief, excitement, worry, confusion, delightedness… he couldn’t seem to land on just one.
“Aha! Gotcha, bitch!” Isaac sing-songed, making Stiles snort. Even though Isaac was prone to random outbursts, his normal demeanor made it hard to believe until he heard it for himself. Stiles sometimes wondered if Isaac was only like that with him because he felt comfortable enough with Stiles to be more outspoken. He would be thrilled if that were the case.
“So uh, how’s it going over there?” Stiles asked semi-awkwardly, trying not to give away that he was currently stalking Isaac’s character on his screen. Despite his inability to shut up sometimes, Stiles was actually quite patient when he played Assassin’s Creed, because the reward was that much sweeter when you downed someone for a 450 point kill.
“Oh, y’know. School. Work. Talking to this dude I like. The usual.”
Isaac sounded completely nonchalant and Stiles wondered if he fully comprehended what he’d just said. Stiles certainly had. His face was warm and there was something knocking around in his stomach, making him feel high (and for once, not on Adderall). “Oh yeah? What’s he like?”
It was like he could see the mischievous smile forming on Isaac’s lips. “Well... he’s kind of a huge dork, tries to make jokes that weren’t funny back in the 1950s when they were first told. He talks a lot… I’m kinda surprised I ever get a word in edgewise-”
Stiles made an indistinguishable noise that only made Isaac snort and continue. “He’s pretty fucking smart when it comes to most things, but kinda clueless when it comes to others. He’s super clever, very resourceful, and can I just - Stiles, you wouldn’t believe this guy’s face. Like, I can hardly fathom it sometimes, actually seeing him in person, being within five feet of that fucking mouth-”
Isaac made a weird little sigh-moan that had Stiles’ dick twitching in his pants. It was all he could do to keep playing, he was so caught up in Isaac’s words that by the time he realized he’d been standing still in the middle of the road, someone was on him and slicing his face open with a hook. The fucking Dandy! Bastard got a revenge kill.
“M-mouth?” Stiles stuttered, finally making his character walk again. He had all but abandoned his concentration at this point in favor of hearing more from Isaac. “What is wrong with his mouth?”
Isaac scoffed. “Wrong? Are you kidding right now? It’s so hot in just pictures, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to see it, watch him while he’s talking, god I wanna kiss you so bad, Stiles.” Apparently Isaac had decided to ditch the whole pretense and by the strangled way his voice came across, he was in a similar situation as Stiles at that point.
“Fuck Isaac,” Stiles breathed heavily, trying to adjust himself in his pants. “W-why haven’t we ever video chatted? Like why has this never happened?” Stiles had fully abandoned the multiplayer match at this point and was being subsequently slaughtered all over the screen.
Isaac was quiet for a while and Stiles wondered if he’d said something wrong, but finally, “Back then, when we first started talking on Skype, I didn’t want to. I didn’t - I didn’t want you to see me. You asked me before, when we first started talking on here and I made some lame excuse and you just accepted it and it never came up again.” His voice was wavering and it didn’t sound anything like it had a few moments ago.
“What? What do you - why didn’t you want me to see you?” Stiles was worried that he was about to hear something he wouldn’t like.
“Stiles… you have to - please don’t … just don’t get mad that I didn’t tell you before, alright? I’ve never - I haven’t told anyone about this before and I honestly just didn’t want to tell you about it at all since it’s over, but-”
“Isaac, what is it? I won’t get mad, are you serious? You’re worrying me… are you okay? Are you safe?” He felt an overwhelming urge to jump in his Jeep and drive up north to rescue Isaac from whatever evils might be lurking, to fold him up inside of Stiles’ arms and bring him into his world and keep him safe there forever.
“No, no, I’m fine, Stiles, don’t worry. I just… back then my dad was still alive, y’know? And he - he hit me a lot. And I didn’t want you to see any - I just couldn’t have you see me like that.” Stiles was pretty certain he could hear Isaac sniffling. “Not when you were the only good thing I had back then.”
“Fuck,” Stiles whispered quietly. He dropped his controller and plopped down in his desk chair. “Isaac. Will you - can we video chat right now? I wanna see you…”
Isaac laughed uncomfortably and sniffled again. “I’m crying, Stiles.”
“Yeah? So what?”
Even though he couldn’t see him, Stiles knew Isaac was rolling his eyes. “Fine.”
Stiles sent him a video chat invite immediately, squirming around in his chair as he waited for Isaac to accept and show up on his screen. And like a scene from a cheesy movie, the guy Stiles couldn’t stop dreaming about every night popped up on his screen in full view, his hair a curly mess that fell down over his forehead, his eyes shining bright blue in the dim light of his bedroom even as he swiped the back of his hand across his nose and sniffed.
“Hey,” he said and smiled.
Stiles beamed back at him; he felt like his face was going to split in half from it. “Hey,” he replied, feeling like he was floating. A year and a few months and here they were, looking at each other face to face for the first time, even after admitting their mutual attraction. Fucking glorious was what it was. But Stiles had a mission that he was being side-tracked from by his never sleeping brain.
“Isaac, there is nothing on this goddamn earth that would make me ever want to not see your face, okay? And maybe I wish you would’ve told me sooner, because fuck knows I would’ve tried to help you in some way, but I’m glad that you feel comfortable enough to tell me now. I want that, okay? I want you to be able to tell me anything - everything - whatever comes to mind, whatever has happened to you, whatever you’ve encountered in your life - I wanna know it all, man.” It might be slightly hypocritical of him to say that since he was keeping a furry secret of his own, but his hope was that he could tell Isaac about it once he came to visit Beacon Hills. He just wasn’t sure if Isaac would want to come back after that.
“It’s not like it’s some sob story, Stiles. It happened, I dealt with it, he died, it stopped, I went to therapy, I went into foster care… that’s pretty much it.” Isaac sounded slightly defensive, but he kept staring at Stiles with something like bewilderment behind his expression.
Stiles’ face remained soft and open. “Isaac. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. That’s not what I meant. I just… I want you to feel like I am someone you can confide in, because that’s what I want to be for you… I really, really wanna be that person for you.” He was gesturing a bit wildly at the screen, but being able to talk to Isaac in a way where he could actually judge his reactions was amazing and he was still overly excited even though the situation at present was kind of grim.
Isaac’s face rippled between confusion, hurt, and gratefulness in quick succession. “Why?” he asked simply, his lip quivering slightly.
“Because I fucking like you, dude, I fucking want you. I want all of you. I want to put my fingers in your hair so bad that I dream about it every night. I dream about kissing you, lying in bed with you, touching your face and your arms and your neck and… I wanna talk to you about video games and joke with you and introduce you to my dad and my mom and my best friend… I want to introduce my other best friend to Scott, okay, I want him to know you, I want everyone to know you, but I wanna know you the most. I wanna be yours and I want you to be mine...” Stiles blinked a couple of times, feeling like he was drowning in the blue of Isaac’s irises, like they were sucking all these words from his mouth like water down a drain.
Isaac was quiet for a while after Stiles trailed off and they just stared at each other until Isaac finally cleared his throat. “No one has ever said anything like that to me before. Especially not to my face,” Isaac confessed quietly.
Stiles leaned closer to the screen for some reason. “When I can actually hug you, I’ll tell you all over again, baby.” It took him a couple of seconds for his mind to catch up with what had just come from his mouth and his eyes grew wide as he backed away from the screen, his mouth hanging open. “I-I-I… I don’t know why - it just sorta came out, I didn’t mean-”
Isaac was grinning at Stiles’ loss for words. “Stiles. It’s fine. I know we haven’t said we’re like, dating or anything, but considering I can’t stop thinking about you, I think ‘baby’ is a term I can deal with.” He smiled more warmly. “Look, what you said before - about if you knew, that you’d try to help me? You did. You helped me every day by being my friend, by listening to me, by giving two shits about what I had to say. I don’t think I would’ve survived it without you.”
Stiles had tears pricking his own eyes now. To think that he’d helped Isaac through hard times without even knowing he was going through them, without knowing that someone he cared so much about was being abused - it was hard to comprehend. “I just… I don’t even know what to say, dude. I can’t believe that it was happening when - and that I had no idea; shouldn’t I have known?”
Isaac shook his head. “I spent my time with you forgetting about it all. Being the person I wanted to be in my own home but couldn’t. If you had known then, I never would have escaped that reality and it would’ve torn me apart. It got pretty bad there for a while…” Isaac ducked his head and curls fell into his face that Stiles wanted to brush away.
He was quiet for longer than usual, still taking Isaac in. “So uh… you sure that spring break is as early as you can manage?” Stiles blurted out at random, causing Isaac to laugh.
“Yeah. But we can hang out during the summer before we leave for college? Maybe we might even end up at the same school?” Isaac looked worried when he said the last.
“You’ve thought about that too?” Stiles asked, mouth gaping. “Applying to some of the same colleges?”
Isaac’s eyes brightened. “Yeah… I didn’t think you had though. I mean, you know you’ll get into freaking Stanford if you wanted to.”
Stiles shook his head. “I don’t care about that, dude, I just wanna learn and enjoy myself, y’know? And I can’t do that without my best friends there.” He grinned all lopsided and Isaac joined him. He had a fucking gorgeous smile.
“Let’s just start with me assassinating you some more and go from there,” Isaac smirked… and then fucking winked at Stiles.
Yeah, Stiles was falling hard.