Work Text:
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It’s raining. Again.
Scott should be used to it now. Used to the never ending pour and the flickering of street lights, but when he looks out the window all he can do is groan and flop back into bed. There are cracks spider-webbing the ceiling, they’ve been there since before he moved in and he didn’t bother asking what they were from on account of the rent. It’s cheap enough that two kids fresh out of college can afford it, but still a bit pricey compared to Beacon Hills.
Is it cramped? Absolutely. Ugly as hell? Even worse. Have functioning windows and a door? For the most part.
But it’s a home that isn’t Beacon Hills.
A home where Allison’s grave and her father isn’t.
He rolls over on his belly, plants his face in the bed sheets. They need to be washed, but Scott still takes a deep breath. Smells familiarity and friends and his body wash and he comes back to himself.
He and Stiles have been living in Seattle for two months. Two months of getting to work pouring wet because he forgot an umbrella. Two months of waiting for thick fog to pass before going out at night. Two months of reminding Stiles to leave his soaking wet work shoes in the hallway when he gets home.
Realistically, they’re only supposed to be here until the coming summer, and it’s October now. Stiles was assigned as a paid intern here in August with the local bureau, and he didn’t want to go alone. Scott didn’t exactly want to go, but then he’d been extended an offer by one of the best vet tech programs in the country and couldn’t exactly refuse.
And then everything that happened happened and Scott had never felt more inclined to skip town. So he and Stiles packed up early and left.
“Scotty! I’m leaving!” Stiles calls from the living room, and Scott snaps his head up. He’s been floating outside of his body since they moved, and Stiles might just be the only tether keeping him from drifting off permanently.
Scott debates on not saying anything, pretending he’s still asleep and waiting on the door to shut before he makes his way out to the kitchen to eat stale cheerios, but instead he crawls forward down onto the floor and pulls himself up using the bookshelf.
Stiles is dressed the same as every other work day: a fancy black suit and dress shoes, with a cross-body briefcase across his shoulders. He’s adjusting his tie in the mirror in the hallway when Scott opens his bedroom door, and he sees Stiles’ eyes follow him in the mirror as he moves towards the living room.
“Morning!” Stiles grins, and then smacks Scott’s ass as he passes. Scott doesn’t react, stopped having much of a reaction years ago. Instead, he grunts and waves over his head, listens to the clack of Stiles’ shoes as he follows him.
“Hey, so I’m testifying today for that first case I got to work on in August.” He spreads his arms, his jacket moving with him, “How do I look?”
Scott glances over, and then opens the cabinet, pulling out the cereal. “Seriously professional.” He mumbles and pulls down a bowl. Cheerios first, then milk, which Stiles openly attests against. Scott couldn’t care less about the order, but now he eats it like this strictly out of spite. Stiles’ watch beeps loudly, signaling that it’s time for him to leave if he doesn’t want to miss the next train, but he stops it and leans against the kitchen counter.
“What’re you doing today?” He asks, adjusts his briefcase against his hip. Scott shrugs, because he has no solidified plans. It’s his day off, and he needs to go grocery shopping, but that’s about as far as he got before giving up and taking a nap. He knows he needs to call his mom, she's planning on coming up next weekend to visit, and he knows Lydia wants to catch up too, but he hasn’t bothered to reach out to either of them yet.
Stiles frowns, disappointment dipping into his eyebrow ridge, “Well, when you go to the store, pick up some of those coffee grounds I like. We ran out and I seriously cannot keep drinking the office coffee. Johnson’s been the one brewing it and I think he’s trying to poison all of us.” He scoffs, crosses his arms.
“He’s FBI, Sti.” “Yeah. Doesn’t mean he’s not a crazy serial killer.” “Well, I'm sure you guys can put your heads together and crack the case.” Scott grins, reaches over and smacks his friend's bicep.
Stiles leaves after that. Yells out a goodbye, and then closes the door, before reopening and shouting “Forgot my umbrella”, before the door shuts for good. Scott waits for the turning of the knob again, but it doesn’t come, so he settles into the couch.
The morning blends into afternoon with the noise from the TV, and rain eventually fades, so Scott figures it’s best to get his errands done now rather than later.
The road’s are still wet, but it’s still warm, so Scott elects to walk. He drags his feet, takes it slowly, watches birds land and take off and people walking with their friends and partners and kids. The sun just barely peeks out behind the clouds, kisses the ground tenderly, and leaves Scott feeling just the right amount of okay. Slim moments like that make him like Seattle, but then a fat raindrop slides off of a patio canopy and hits him in the face and he starts to grovel again.
He kind of hates that he doesn’t know a whole lot of people in this city. He’s met plenty of people through work, but no one he’d ever see outside of caring for their pets. And his coworkers are nice. Good people making good money and doing good work, but none of them are great . He wouldn’t hang out with them outside of the office, thinks the gossip they engage in just in the clinic is barely a fraction of what they would talk about outside it.
The only person he can actually tolerate is Mason, one of their interns that’s pretty much been delegated to blood-work duty for the past month. His boyfriend is nice too, but Scott has only met him once when he picked Mason up from work and they had a ten minute conversation about a shared favorite book while Mason stood there disassociating.
The butcher at the grocery store greets him by name, but Scott can’t get himself to respond, because he has absolutely no clue what his name is. Instead he smiles and waves, and then goes to pick out a cut of beef. Stiles has been asking for steaks for weeks, so Scott grabs the nicest looking, fairly-priced sirloins he can find.
And thank god it’s a Thursday, because he doesn’t know if he’d be able to handle too many people at the store. Too many eyes passing over him, giving judgment and leaving invisible handprints across his skin.
Scott shivers just thinking about it, so he focuses back on what cereal to buy.
It starts to drizzle again as he’s walking home, and he didn’t bring a fucking umbrella. Scott curses, sprints towards the closest awning he can find just as the rain picks up, grips his grocery bags tightly so they don’t get soaked through.
The awning belongs to a small book store, with a bright red door and two narrow windows piled high with stacks of books. Pendragon Books is plastered across both windows, and then Books - Magazines - Textbooks in a smaller font underneath.
Scott pushes the red door open without thinking, and the bell above it jingles alongside the patter of rain outside.
“Welcome to Pendragon books!” A voice calls out from behind a large shelf, and then a tumbling crash followed by a string of muffled cursing. Scott sets his groceries by the door, hurries towards where the crash had come from and peeks around. There’s a pile of books all over the floor, some closed, some open, and underneath the books, a lanky pile of limbs and hair.
“Are you okay?” Scott asks, kneels down and starts to pull books away and stack them, but the man underneath them simply stands and lets the rest of the books tumble off of him. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. I told Boyd we needed to get that shelf fixed. Damnit.” The shopkeeper sighs, looks upwards, and Scott follows his gaze. Where there should be a shelf is a gap and a couple of bent screws, the shelf in question on the floor and split in half.
And then, as if suddenly reminded, the shopkeeper steps away, and Scott focuses on him. “Sorry! I am so sorry, uhm… Welcome to Pendragon Books! What can I help you with?” His words stumble out, and Scott falters for a second because holy shit .
The man in front of him has the most striking blue eyes he’s ever seen. They’re bright and welcoming and staring right at him suddenly Scott doesn’t know what he’s doing here. His eyes aren’t the only thing Scott is stumbling over, because the rest of the man's face is just as pretty.
“Uhm… I- uh nothing. I was just… looking I guess.” Looking is the understatement of the year, he hears Stiles' voice in his head, waves it away from his imagination. “Trying to get out of the rain.” He offers as an excuse, and the man cocks his head. He steps closer, and Scott feels himself stop breathing for a second, but then he passes him and looks around the shelves at the windows.
“Didn’t even hear it start up.” He whispers, and Scott chuckles, “I mean… you were a little distracted…” Scott gestures at the ground, and the other man laughs.
Scott wants to hear it again just as soon as it fades.
He finally lets his eyes wander back to the shopkeeper, tries not to look at his face for too long, but he does look for a nametag pinned to his olive green apron. There isn’t one, and he frowns. Instead, the shopkeeper kneels down, starts to stack the books that have fallen and tries to clean up. Scott follows his lead.
“Oh you don’t need to-” “It’s okay. I’m a great cleaner. Just ask my roommate.” He smiles, and the man grins back, laughs with his shoulders, but he doesn’t protest anymore. They pile the books on one of the already overflowing carts, and the man balances them with the skill of someone who's already done this a couple hundred times.
“Thanks.” He whispers, rubs the back of his neck, and Scott feels his face warm for no reason. “Oh it’s- it’s my pleasure. Really.” He forces himself to look around, take in the towering shelves of books that surround them. “This is a… nice place. I like it.” He smiles, says more to himself than anything, but the man whispers. “Me too. Why do you think I started working here.”
Scott feels a lump in his throat when he looks back at him, and then looks away when he sees the other man is already looking at him.
“Well uhm… feel free to look around. I’ll be… up at the front if you need anything.” He says, and when Scott nods, retreats back to the front of the store. Leaves Scott standing in the aisle with stars in his eyes.
The book store itself is unimpressive in space, but what it lacks in size it makes up for with stock. There are four tall shelves, all stacked with a mixture of hardcovers and paperbacks separated by section. There’s a small staircase in the front that leads up to what Scott assumes is an office, and even the walls surrounding the staircase are filled with books. Behind one aisle is an ugly blue couch that looks like it would itch, but that Scott wants to lay down and read on anyways.
He’s standing in front of the mysteries, but his feet move without him telling them to and he ends up in the fantasy section. It takes up an entire row, but Scott looks through every shelf anyways. A majority of the books are hardcover, and usually he’d turn away because of the price, but he pulls out two that are side by side. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, and The Lost Years of Merlin . According to the latter, it's the first in a series of twelve, and Scott finds it fitting that he’s pulled two Arthurian books in a shop named after the titular king.
He carries them to the front, eyes his grocery bags still on the floor, but heads straight to the counter. The shopkeep smiles when he sees the covers, taps the front of the first and whispers, “You know… Arthurian copies are ‘buy one get one’ today.” He inserts the price of the cheaper one into the till, which is probably older than both of them combined, and begins to bag them.
“Oh I- I mean I didn’t see a sign-” Scott starts to say, but the man holds his finger to his lips. “Just take it. No one else is gonna buy it.” He shoves the second one into the paper bag, seals it with a fold, and then takes Scott’s credit card.
When he goes to hand it back, he smiles and says “I’m Isaac, by the way.” and Scott smiles so hard his cheeks ache, (because Isaac’s smile is apparently infectious) and takes his card back. “Scott.”
“Well Scott,” Isaac pushes the bag across the counter towards him, “Thanks for coming in. See you later?” It’s not the kind of question an employee usually asks a customer, Scott knows that, but he nods and takes the bag. “Yeah. I’ll see you.”
The rain has already stopped, but who knows for how long, so Scott hurries home with his groceries and his books. The entire way, he thinks about the way his name sounded in Isaac’s mouth. The way it rolled off of his tongue with ease, like it was just waiting for Scott to come along and it could find an excuse to come out.
Scott swallows the thoughts and lets them rest.
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Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
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Scott finishes King Arthur and His Noble Knights, starts on The Lost Years , but barely gets a quarter way through before his heart starts to hurt and he leaves it unfinished on the coffee table. Stiles pokes at it, reads the page that Scott had left off on, and then puts it back down with a “oh god”.
It sits there for three days before Scott re-shelves it on his near empty bookshelf.
He goes to work the day before he goes back to the bookstore, nearly runs straight into Corey walking inside. “Oh. Hey Scott! Sorry I didn’t-” “It’s fine. Don’t worry.” Scott waves it off, “I was distracted.”
They stand awkwardly for a moment, until Corey says “Hey uhm… if you ever wanted to… hang out with Mason and I- we go to this bar downtown that does Karaoke on Saturdays. You could totally… come if you wanted. It’s usually just us and our friends.”
Scott nods, “That uh… that sounds cool. I’m busy this weekend but… maybe another week?” “Yeah! Yeah, totally. Mason can send you the place.”
That’s as far as the interaction goes, and Scott scoots to the side and waves his goodbye over his shoulder with a small smile. Sydney greets him at the front desk with her rabbit in her arms, sighs in relief when she sees him. “Dr. McCall, thank god. Bruce isn’t eating…” she sighs, and Scott smiles. He’s not a doctor yet, but it makes him almost happy to hear it.
He gets her checked in, and then starts his rounds on the other patients under the clinic’s care. By the time lunch has come around, he’s got dog pee on his scrubs and even gotten to scrub in on a cat’s emergency c-section. He feels like Dr. Deaton back home would be proud of him if he knew that Scott was doing so well, but then he has to inform a family their dog has terminal cancer and that sinking feeling he’s been keeping down for months resurfaces.
“How long does she have left?” Scott asks, crosses his arms tightly across his chest. Chris is at his side, breathing heavily and body tense. The doctor shakes his head, sighs, “I can’t- I can’t tell you anything for sure. But… you should start making end of life plans.”
And with that, the doctor disappears down the hall and into the swarm of the rest of Beacon Hills Memorial. His mom stands across the hall, her hands in her scrub pockets, but despite the swell of people surrounding them, Scott doesn’t hear a damn thing. He can’t hear anything past the beeping of machines and Allison’s labored breathing. Past the thundering of his own heart.
“Scott? Scott?” Tracy’s voice brings him back to Earth. She’s one of the nurses who was here when he got here, and Scott’s not sure he’d consider her a friend, but at least she doesn’t try to befriend him like all the others. They’re simply coworkers, and Scott would rather leave it like that.
He snaps back, shakes his head slightly and blinks, “Tracy- Uhm- Do you need me?” They’re sitting behind the reception, filing paperwork for new patients. It’s been slow, only a few appointments since lunch. Tracy shakes her head, “You just kinda… zoned out. Are you okay?”
He nods, rubs his eyes, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry-” he gets up, disappears into the back of the clinic through the double metal doors.
He locks himself in the employee bathroom, grabs hold of the porcelain sink with both hands and clenches his fists until his knuckles are white. He feels tightness in the skin on his face, like there's something behind his eyes pushing to get out. He clenches his jaw, focuses on the breathing exercises Stiles taught him the first time this happened.
It passes a few minutes later, and Scott doesn’t want to call it a panic attack, more like a seedling. A sprout of panic and the terrifying clouds that could cause a rainstorm.
He wipes his face with the water from the tap and dries it with paper towels.
Stiles is waiting up for him when he gets home that night. He’s got sweats pulled over his socks and looks more relaxed now than he has in months. There’s takeout on the table and he’s got some old recorded movie in the DVD player. Scott didn’t even know they had one.
He pointedly doesn't tell his best friend about what happened today. About the episode and the flashbacks and the screaming of his head, so he plasters on a smile and grabs a pair of chopsticks from the bag.
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Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to feel you there.
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Scott goes back to the little bookstore at least another three times that week, smiles wide whenever he sees Isaac and greets him with a wave before he half-browses, half-hopes Isaac starts up a conversation with him. By the end of the first week, he’s almost filled one whole shelf.
The next time he goes, the little bell over the red door almost brings comfort to Scott when it chimes, but what seals the deal is Isaac looking up from the book he’s hunched over and smiling wide. “Scott! Wasn’t expecting to see you.” Scott spreads his arms, a silent here I am but he doesn’t say anything.
Silence stretches between them instead.
“You finish those books?” Isaac asks to break it, and Scott hesitates, “Uh… yeah. Yeah, back for that next book in the series.”
Isaac points at him, hops off of his stool and drops his book. “I uh- I thought- or well I hoped you’d come back so I did a lot of digging and I found the next three books in the series. I pulled ‘em for you already.” He squats, digs around beneath the cash register before popping up with a small stack of mixed hardcover and paperback. “I couldn’t find all of them in hardback ‘cause I- I uh assumed you’d prefer that but… I did my best.”
He folds his hands over the stacks of books, and Scott tracks the movement with his eyes. Isaac’s wearing this ugly brown cardigan over a white t-shirt, and it's got cream-colored stripes running down the sleeves, but Scott finds it adorable .
And he appreciates the effort– he does –but he’d been hoping to at least spend an hour here. He moves towards the counter, reaches towards the books, and Isaac pulls his hands away. Scott wishes he hadn’t.
“Thanks, Isaac… that was… that was nice of you.” He whispers, voice hoarse. When he looks up, Isaac has a wrinkle in his forehead. “You okay?” Isaac knocks, saying it lower than his usual speaking voice.
Scott doesn’t nod, doesn’t acknowledge it, but he does ask “What are you reading?”
Isaac’s face lights up. “Keats. Selected poems. I’ve always… really loved poetry. Thought I was gonna be a poet when I was a kid.” He laughs lightly, and Scott feels his slate wipe clean. “My mom read me poems when I was a kid. My uh- my ex was into poems too. She was horrible at it though.” He chuckles at the memory of Allison. Somehow, in front of Isaac, he can talk about her. Doesn’t have to mention that she’s dead, or how she died, or that it was his fault. She’s just a girl from his past in front of Isaac.
And Isaac laughs, and then it dawns on Scott. He doesn’t even know Isaac’s last name.
“Lahey.” Isaac says, and Scott flushes and then groans, “Ugh… I said that out loud. Didn’t I?” Isaac grins, nods as he laughs, and he’s fucking beautiful, “Yeah. But hey uh… at least you do now.”
Isaac. Isaac Lahey. Isaac Lahey where have you been all my life?
He keeps his mouth shut, makes sure he doesn’t say that one out loud. Isaac looks at him like he’s waiting; expecting something. Scott nods. “McCall.” He extends his hand, “Pleasure to meet you Isaac Lahey.”
Isaac reaches out, grips his hand, and they hold their hands in midair rather than shake, “Pleasure is all mine, Scott McCall.”
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Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--
White and awful the moonlight dreamed
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Allison and Scott start as this big flame. A bonfire that surges up towards the sky as soon as the match hits the logs. And it begins with her asking for a pen on her first day of school. They burn bright. Brighter than the stars and the sun and earth combined.
And then Scott takes a bucket of water to the flames, and the flames dwindle to embers, and then fade to ashes. But they stay friends, on account of their own. Tries to keep the group together. It works well.
And the beginning of the end starts on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, when Scott asks her for a ride home after his bike runs out of gas.
“Yeah. Yeah hop in.” She nods, unlocks the doors to let him in.
The ride is almost silent through the preserve, only accompanied by the song on the radio. They stop at a gas station to fill a gas can so he can refill his bike in the morning. That’s where the real ending begins, because Allison leaves that gas station on a gurney. A mugger pulls a gun on Allison while Scott is paying inside. He hears a gunshot as he extends his card, and then drops it on the floor.
Allison stays conscious long enough to tell him it doesn’t hurt, that she’s okay with dying in his arms. And Scott doesn’t know what to do, he holds her tight, whispers “It’s gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay.” and wipes blood off of her lips. Her blood pools around them as they wait for the EMT’s, washing down the drain with the rainwater.
Scott wakes up, blinks sleep from his eyes and swallows the metallic taste in his mouth from where he bites his cheek in his sleep. The spiderweb cracks stare down at him, and rain slams down outside the windows again. He sighs. It’s another rainy Tuesday.
Scott hates Seattle and he hates the rain. Hates the rain because everytime he watches a storm drain suction down water, he sees red within it. See’s Allison coughing up blood in the middle of a storm and almost dying in his arms. And then really dying three days later.
Stiles is cooking breakfast, a dangerous thing considering it almost always includes him nearly burning the apartment building down or at least setting off the smoke alarm.
And then, almost as soon as he walks out, Stiles surrenders the kitchen to Scott’s capable hands. It’s the first time since they moved here that they have the same day off, so they eat breakfast at the table and talk about the upcoming weekend. “So… My mom is coming up on Friday, and she’s staying until Sunday. I already requested the weekend off so I can spent it with her.”
“And Lydia is coming up on…” Stiles squints at his phone, “Saturday. I think she’s staying for like a week. Obviously she’s gonna… stay here.” He says quietly, and Scott smirks. Stiles and Lydia have had an on-again-off-again type relationship since their senior year of high school. All through college and then when they’d moved here. She’s living in Los Angeles he thinks, and whenever Stiles goes down to see the big bosses, he stays with her.
It’s a lazy afternoon, full of chores and cleaning for the upcoming visits, and when Scott runs out of energy and needs to recharge, Stiles forces him down onto the couch and tries his best to give him a hand.
The rain never lets up, and Scott watches it fall, and wonders how Chris is doing. If he’s still in California, or if he’d gone back to France. Or New York. Or South America.
Scott hopes he never comes to Seattle. Because it rained throughout Allison’s funeral, and Scott is starting to suspect that it only rains on the worst days of his life.
Every rainy Tuesday, which means almost every Tuesday, is hard. Scott hates Seattle because of the rain and Tuesdays and the memories of a girl who smiled brighter than the sun. But then Scott’s mind drifts to Isaac and the bookstore and his eyes that rival the beauty of the moon.
Time stills when he thinks about Isaac Lahey, the boy in the bookshop, with all of these secrets of his own that Scott doesn’t think he’ll ever get to learn. Mostly because it would have to be an exchange of sins. Whatevers holding Isaac back for Scott’s neverending guilt. The rain doesn’t stop though, pounds hard against the fire escape and down to the pavement below. Floods the planter boxes and clears the streets.
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Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere
There was a shutter loose, –it screeched!
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Scott doesn’t think his mom stops smiling the entire time she’s in Seattle.
Melissa gets there mid-afternoon on Friday, and the moment he picks her up from the train station, she hugs him harder than he ever remembers being hugged. And Scott isn’t the kind of person who rejects a hug, so he squeezes back.
“How are you?” She near whispers, and it’s hard for him to hear over the noise of the station, but he does hear it. Scott nods, doesn’t say anything but he smiles instead. “What about work? Do you like your new job?”
“Mom, we've talked about that already. Over the phone?” “Oh I know but…” she grips him by both arms and leans back, gets this wider view of her son who she hasn’t seen in months, “It’s just nice to see you. To hold you.”
Scott feels his smile falter for the briefest of moments, so instead he just pulls her back in for another hug.
They have a late lunch down the street from Pendragon Books, and he debates bringing Melissa there, but then he thinks it would be too weird introducing his mom to Isaac this early into their friendship so he doesn’t say anything.
Melissa is staying at a hotel down the street, even though Scott had already told her she could stay with them, but then Stiles points out that four people in a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment maybe isn’t the best idea.
Lydia gets there the next night, drives all the way there in the Prius she’s had since they were seventeen, and then she and Stiles take off into the city to “catch up”. They don’t necessarily invite him, but Stiles gives him a look he knows means you good? and Scott nods and says “I’ll probably get dinner with my mom. Before she leaves tomorrow night.”
They eat dinner on a patio connected to an Italian restaurant, as rain drizzles off of the canopy and surrounds them. Scott must get lost in staring at it mid-bite, because his mom reaches over and covers his hand with hers.
“Scott? How have you been doing? Are you… seeing someone? Like we talked about?” There’s sincerity in her words, and Scott tilts his head. “I mean… there’s this guy I met and he’s great, but we haven’t gone out yet-“ “No I meant- like a therapist?” She smiles when she says it, and Scott knows he’s just shown her his entire deck.
He sits back in his chair, nods because it’s technically half true. One of his regulars at the clinic is a psych major, and they’ve talked halfway about trauma responses, but mostly in the form of dogs.
Melissa smirks across the table, “Okay out with it. I wanna hear about this boy who stole my son's heart.” Scott tilts his head back. Looks up at the striped canopy and groans.
“He’s not a boy mom! Oh my-“ he looks back at her expectant face, “He’s just a… a friend.” But there’s a smile on his mouth when he says it.
“Bullshit. The last time you smiled like that over a friend, it was when you met-“ she stops herself, frowns at her penne, but then she picks herself back up. “C’mon, what’s his name?”
And because Scott is such a people pleaser, and sighs and says “Isaac.” “Oooh, Isaac. What does he do? How’d you guys meet?”
“Mom!”
“Sorry! Sorry! It’s just- I want you to be happy again.” Scott feels himself blush, but he says “I don’t- I don’t even know if he… you know. Likes me.” “Well if he talks to his momma about you with the same smile you have right now… he does.” Melissa insists, and then goes back to her wine.
Scott’s always been a helpless romantic. His mom read him poems about love and lust and loss instead of stories about knights in shining armor and damsels in distress. He knows every romantic collection in her personal collection cover to cover. So yeah, he’s always been a bit of a romantic. Even when the romance part of it has yet to happen.
But he hasn’t picked up a poem since Allison's funeral, where he read out The Dream by Edna St. Vincent Millay during her eulogy. He doesn’t know if love is in the cards for him anymore, or if he’d even be able to handle it. But he wants it. He wants to fall in love again.
But Allison is always behind his eyelids. When he sleeps. When he blinks. When he just closes his eyes and listens to the rainfall. And it’s never something nice. Never their first date or their second, or when they skipped school to hang out in the woods. It’s always the last time he saw her whole. It’s always her dying in his arms, shaking from a non-existent cold crawling under her skin.
Melissa hasn’t said his name, but he zones back in on her.
They fall into a silence not exactly companionable, but somehow not awkward. The same way the house fell silent in the week after the mugging and before the funeral. In between the two single worst days of his life.
A chill overtakes him, wraps the entire patio up like a blanket, and Scott shivers. Shakes in his own skin. Feels his muscles contract and sink in on themselves. Melissa looks up between bites of her pasta and smiles at him, and somehow the shiver pops. Like this giant bubble and he gets hit with some of the rain that suddenly picks up. But Scott says nothing.
+++++
Swung in the wind, –and no wind blowing!--
I was afraid, and turned to you
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Scott doesn’t have a chance to go back to the bookstore until the following Saturday. He’s been so slammed in between keeping his mom and Lydia entertained and work that going out hasn’t exactly been in the cards. He hasn’t even gotten a chance to cook actual food, has ordered in or been brought back leftovers from where Stiles and Lydia get dinner.
It doesn’t rain the entire week. Scott is grateful. He thinks maybe he’s warming up to Seattle.
He’s got Sunday off, so on Saturday Scott asks Mason to send him the address to the bar Corey invited him to, and Mason lights up. “Oh man, you’ll love it! My best friend Liam is coming too, I think you two will get along.” He babbles, and for the first time in a week, since he dropped his mom off at the train station, Scott smiles.
He goes to the bookstore the same day with the intention of inviting Isaac to karaoke, but it’s not Isaac behind the counter. It’s another man, whose hands are bigger than the little book he’s reading from. The man behind the counter looks up when the bell rings, and he smiles softly but Scott still deflates a little.
“Can I help you?” The man asks, stays seated on his little stool. He’s got a name tag pinned to his apron, and it says in delicate handwriting Boyd. I told Boyd we needed to get that shelf fixed, echoes in Scott’s head, and Scott looks around the store, “I was just… I was looking for Isaac.”
Boyd laughs and sets down his book, “You’re Scott, aren’t you?”
Scott almost instantly falls into fight or flight, “How do you-” “Isaac. He… talks about you.”
Scott’s heart flutters rapidly in his chest, and he feels it in his ribs and in his toes. Isaac talks about him. After only a couple of meetings. And apparently, he talks about Scott enough that his coworker knows him. And he wonders what he’s said. If he says more than just “he’s becoming a new regular”.
Boyd grins, “Isaac doesn’t work on Fridays or Saturdays. Hence why I’m here.” Scott feels himself frown, “Oh. Did he uhm… did he leave anything for me?” He asks, and Boyd shakes his head. “Not that I know of. He’ll be back tomorrow though, if you wanna see him.” Scott knows Boyd probably shouldn’t be telling him all of this, employee confidentiality and all that, but he nods and says “thanks” instead.
He walks to the bar, it’s only a block away, passes people on the street that are vaguely familiar, and he smiles in greeting when a woman waves.
The bar is small, unassuming from the outside with a black and gold sign that says Galatians. He thinks that's a chapter in the bible, but he isn’t quite sure.
There’s a long bar almost as soon as he walks in, and directly across from it, a small stage with TV monitors for what Scott assumes is the karaoke portion of the bar. There’s booths and tables scattered around, and Scott finds Mason waving at him from a booth in the corner. Corey and another man around their age is with him, and Scott has to dodge the day-drinkers and the waitresses to get to the booth.
“Hey! Welcome to the cool kids table.” Mason smiles as Scott scoots in beside the boy he doesn’t know, and Corey smacks Mason’s arm. “What he means is thanks for coming. I’m glad you could make it.” “Yeah I’m- I’m glad too.”
Mason points at the other boy, the one Scott assumes is his best friend, “This is Liam. We’ve been best friends since-” “Since we were four. Hey.” Liam extends a hand awkwardly, and they shake for less than a moment.
“Okay, how does this work? We drink, we sing a little bit?” Scott leans forward, and Corey turns in his seat, grabs the attention of the nearest waitress. He holds up four fingers, and she nods and retreats back towards the bar.
“Usually Mason and Corey perform a tipsy rendition of ‘Somebody to Love’ by Queen, and then a drunken rendition of ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ that starts up a Whitney revolution that goes until the bar closes.” Liam laughs, and Mason tuts. “Not true!” He nearly yells, “Liam always sings Taylor Swift!”
Scott laughs, feels the thrum of music deep in his bones, “I can get down with Taylor!” Liam gets excited, his voice jumps an octave, “See! You said you liked my version of ‘Shake It Off’ last week anyway!”
Mason leans back, silently admits defeat by taking a long sip of his beer.
Karaoke kicks off less than twenty minutes after they get their drinks. It starts with a group of college girls who sing three different songs before getting pulled off of the stage. They’re already wasted, but Scott doesn’t say anything about it. Simply watches. And Liam is right, by the third drink Mason and Corey are giggling to themselves and honestly their duet that is not originally a duet is a huge hit with the crowd. Scott and Liam laugh to themselves in their booth, and order more drinks.
The alcohol wipes away the memories. Of the blood and of the gunshot. Of the doctors and of Allison’s face and for the first time in 72 days she’s not there when he closes his eyes.
Eventually, it’s two girls' turn to sing. They break out a rendition “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and finish the song with a sloppy kiss, and Scott grins big. He watches them as they go back to their table to raving drunken applause, and he stops.
Isaac is with them, offering a smile and high fives as they cuddle up to each other in their booth. Isaac, with the beautiful blue-eyes and soft caramel hair, with freckles all over his face. Scott stares, doesn’t care if Isaac somehow finds him in the crowd. He’s at least six drinks in– it could be more –and it’s true when they call alcohol liquid courage, because right now Scott feels invincible.
Liam leans closer and follows Scott’s line of sight, asks “friend of yours?” with a laugh, and Scott nods. “Yeah. Something like that.”
He watches Isaac get up and go to the bar, and Scott follows. He doesn’t know why, doesn’t know why there’s this need to follow Isaac, but Scott thinks in this moment that he’d follow this man to the end of earth if he’d let him.
“Isaac!” He shouts, drops a hand on Isaacs shoulder, and he flinches away. Jumps like Scott has just scared him. But then the tension in his shoulders falls away and he smiles smally. “Scott. I didn’t know you came here.”
Scott shrugs, moves closer to the bar. He and Isaac are hip to hip, a burning sensation rips through Scott at the touch, even if it is through layers of clothing. “First time!” he shouts, and then chuckles. The bartender brings over a fruity looking cocktail and a glass of scotch for Isaac, and then turns to Scott.
“Just another beer!” He tries to say over the music, but the bartender must have a hard time hearing him because she leans closer over the bar. “Another beer” Isaac supplies for him, and she nods and disappears down the bar.
“Thanks” Scott mouths, and then points at the drinks, “What’re you drinking?” “Oh I don’t- I don’t drink. They’re for my friends.” He points towards the two women, who are so wrapped up in each other they pay no attention to Isaac’s pointing.
But then Isaac looks back at him, with those ocean blue eyes and asks “How much have you had to drink?” Scott shrugs because he doesn’t actually know.
Isaac doesn’t smile, but he looks for the bartender. “Do you… wanna get out of here?” He asks, and Scott flushes, eyes go wide and his heart pounds . It slams against his ribcage hard, and a lump forms in his throat, “What about my beer? My friends?” Isaac waves it off, “Fuck ‘em.”
So Scott nods, he nods hard and feels his heart jump into his throat. Isaac drops off the drinks at his friends table, waves, and then takes Scott by the hand and pulls him through the bar. He hears Mason distantly, but Scott ignores him, focuses on Isaac’s hand in his and the warmth of his palm.
Scott is already pretty drunk, the world around him is fading in and out and turning inside out. He nearly stumbles off of the sidewalk, right into a car, but Isaac grabs him by the jacket and pulls him back. He loops Scott’s arm over his shoulder, steers him down the street. And Scott feels warm even in chilly October, he’s warm all over and he thinks it’s either the alcohol or being this close to Isaac but who knows honestly.
Isaac stops them in front of a familiar red door, fishes for his keys in his pocket. “You live in the bookstore?” Scott slurs, and Isaac has to lean him up against the window just to get the door open. “I live above it, actually.” He props the door open with his foot, and then hoists Scott up by putting his arm around Scott’s waist and pulls him inside.
He helps Scott up the staircase in the front room and through the door, where there's a small office and another set of steep stairs. They take the stairs one at a time, Scott’s too scared about tripping and falling over and breaking Isaac so he grips the handrail and steps up them carefully, Isaac’s hand on his lower back the entire way up.
Truthfully, he doesn’t remember anything after they make it to the top floor. It’s just a blank space in his mind, almost like falling asleep.
But Scott wakes up in an unfamiliar bed the next morning with sun streaming through the windows and a pounding in his head. He thinks about getting up, but the comforter is weighted and it's the softest bed he’s ever slept in so he sinks deeper into it.
“I was gonna wake you up with coffee, but man… you look so comfortable.” Isaac’s voice washes over him and Scott’s eyes fly open and his face immediately heats. He turns his head slowly, looks over the covers at Isaac, who's standing at the foot of the bed with two mugs and looks like he’s just woken up. There are still dark circles under his eyes, but they’re hidden by the circular glasses he’s wearing, and his curly hair is sticking up in every direction, but somehow he still looks gorgeous in every part the sun can touch, and even the spots it doesn’t.
And then it hits him.
This is Isaac’s house. This is Isaac’s bed . Scott is sleeping in Isaac’s angelically comfortable bed and Isaac is bringing him coffee. The night before comes back in pieces. The bar, the karaoke, stumbling through the streets of Seattle. And still, Scott is fully clothed when he pulls the comforter back and sits up.
“Hope you slept well. I didn’t want to- after we got back to the store you wouldn’t tell me your address and I couldn’t find your phone so I just… put you in here.” Isaac sits on the edge of the bed, extends one of the mugs and Scott accepts it with hesitant hands. “Thanks” he whispers, and they settle into an uncomfortable silence.
Scott takes the moment to look around the room. There's a bookshelf full of well-worn books, and a photo of Isaac, maybe at eight years old, with an older boy who he looks alarmingly like. They have the same crooked nose, and freckles dotted across their sun kissed cheeks. They both have ice cream dripping down their chins, and that version of Isaac looks happy.
This Isaac frowns into his coffee cup as he drinks it.
“Thank you for… not leaving me at the bar, I guess. But I think I left my phone at the table with my friends.” Scott sits his mug in his lap, careful not to spill his coffee on Isaac’s bedsheets. Then he asks, “Do I snore?”
Isaac snorts, and then he smiles at the floor, “I uh- I don’t know. Slept on the couch.”
We could’ve shared .
He doesn’t say that. Instead he nods towards the photo, “That your brother?” It’s the only logical explanation, and Isaac tenses. He freezes and Scott thinks he hears his breath shutter. Isaac mutters “Yeah, Camden” and that’s that.
Camden and Isaac.
He nods to fill the silence, as if the infinitesimally small movement can save the drowning moment. He wants to say thank you again, just to say something, but he’s already said it twice. So, he just looks at Isaac, watches his profile and the way his adam's apple bobs in his throat when he swallows his coffee, how the sun peeks through the curtains perfectly enough that his glasses leave a glare on the wall.
For some reason, he wants Isaac to notice him staring. Wants him to turn and ask what’re you doing just so Scott can smile and say something corny like just looking and then the morning can turn lazy. Can turn delicate and soft and melt away like sugar on his tongue.
But then Isaac stands and turns away, focuses on the wall, before turning around. “I gotta… open the bookstore in like an hour. I should shower…” It sounds like he’s asking Scott to leave, so Scott stands and sets his coffee on the nightstand. “Oh I can- I can go if you-” Isaac furrows his brow, “What? Do you have a shift?”
Scott shakes his head, “Oh. No I- I just figured…” “I was gonna say you could… stay? If you wanted? You could help me… open the shop? We could hang out.” Isaac’s voice is vulnerable, sleep-soft and Scott wants to grab his hand and study every inch of him. Bookstore be damned.
And Scott’s heart stalls in his chest, and he thinks he would keel over and die if his muscles weren’t locked up. “I don’t have any clean clothes.” He mutters, and Isaac laughs softly, “Just borrow some of mine.” “No offense but… you’re a lot taller than me.”
Isaac shakes his head, “I buy my jeans short. I like the style.” “Did you just call me short ?”
And that gets both of them going until neither of them can stop laughing and Isaac is doubled over and grabbing his ribs. “Okay- Okay-” He says breathlessly, “Just… I gotta shower. Don’t burn my house down, please.” And then he disappears through the bedroom door and into the bathroom, and Scott watches him go.
It gives him a little time to explore, and Scott wanders towards the window next to the dresser. He looks out at the street below, and then turns and comes face to face with the photo of Isaac and his brother.
Nice to meet you Camden , he says to himself, I’m Scott.
He ends up stealing a green sweater out of Isaac’s closet. It has a hood and drawstrings, but no front pocket, and Scott doesn't know why but it's the only thing he sees that draws him in.
And he even ventures outside of Isaac’s bedroom, brings the two mugs to the kitchen with light footsteps and sets them in the sink. Isaac’s apartment is nicer than his, even if it is half the space. He’s got a gray plush couch with a knitted blanket draped over the back, and the throw pillows don’t match the rug, but Scott can tell Isaac’s not exactly the kind of interior decorator who matches the furniture.
He’s got a huge photo collage on the wall, photos of him and his two friends from the bar, more of him and his brother, and in some of them it looks like a woman who could be their mother. Pointedly though, Scott doesn’t spot a single photo of his father. But there are alphabet magnets on the fridge that spell out cuss words and there's an overgrown plant in the corner of the dining room that's in full blossom and Scott feels secure. Feels safe and grounded.
Feels at home in the sense.
The shower shuts off a few moments later, and Scott hears the bathroom door open, “Scott? Where’d you go?” Isaac’s voice drifts down the hall, and instinctively Scott clams up. Hesitates to just say “in here ” and let Isaac follow his voice.
Isaac finds him anyway, smiles when he sees that Scott is wearing one of his sweaters, but doesn’t say anything about it. “You like it?” He asks, and Scott takes a second to realize he means the apartment. “Oh! Yeah! Yeah, it’s really- it’s comfortable.” “That sounds like an insult almost…” “It usually is but… I like it. I like it a lot.”
I like you a lot .
It’s crazy to even think, because he’s known Isaac for less than three weeks, and this is only the fourth time they’ve seen each other, but something in him flutters when Isaac looks at him and he doesn’t quite catch it in his palms, so it escapes to be dealt with on another day.
“Opening the shop is easy,” Isaac explains, “Just gotta set the till. Make sure no books fell over on the night and restock them if they did. Collect the mail.”
Scott doesn’t know why, but he expects the bookstore to look different in the morning. The only real difference is the sunlight streaming in through the windows where the sun is still barely peeking over the building on the opposite side of the street. It fills the room, every corner pure sunbeams, but then Isaac ruins it by turning on the lights.
And just like Isaac said, opening is easy. Scott takes a broom, sweeps up the leaves they’d accidentally let in the night before, and straightens the books. Leaves everything else to Isaac, who barrels through the shop like a man on a mission.
And then he pulls up a second stool behind the counter, takes a seat on his usual one, and pats the other stool seat. Beckons Scott to sit with him.
Scott doesn’t hesitate to join him.
“So you… live above the bookshop…” Scott says it just to say it, and for the first time Isaac doesn’t have his face buried in the pages of a book. All of his attention is on Scott. “How’d you end up with that deal?”
“Pretty sweet right? Well I was crashing on my friends Kira and Malia’s couch after… after I moved out. But I knew they were getting bored of me not having a job and being pretty much miserable all the time, so my best friend, Erica, got her boyfriend Boyd to help get me a job with him here.” Scott doesn’t miss how Isaac’s eyes trail around the store as he recounts his story, gives Scott a peek at whatever’s lying beneath his skin.
And then he continues, “I was here for like less than a month when my boss Peter’s nephew moved out of the apartment upstairs. I was here the day Derek moved and I made a joke about if he was putting it up for rent, and next thing I know I have an offer.” He raises his hands, as if it’s a great tale, and Scott feels his cheeks warm watching him.
“It helps that I almost always open the shop. This way, I don’t have to drive or walk to work. Just walk downstairs.”
There’s something so naive and hopeful about the way Isaac says it all. As if the world outside is just as easy as walking down the stairs to work. He almost envies Isaac for it. For having even a hint of faith in humanity, but it sizzles away when Isaac reaches past him for a book under the counter and their hands brush for the smallest second.
Time drifts by with the wind, Scott goes to the coffee shop down the street and brings back breakfast sandwiches and they eat them over napkins that are laid out over the counter because the egg drips out of the halved-croissant. Scott helps reshelve and reorganize the sections, and together they draw up a hypothetical new floorplan that makes everything easier to find. They talk about school; Isaac makes a noise that Scott thinks means makes sense when he says he’s training to be a veterinarian, and then Isaac says “I’m actually in law school” and a lot of puzzle pieces start falling into place at random.
Not many people come into the store past three, but Scott watches Isaac ring up the few that do. And then asks if he can try. Isaac hesitates, but then he moves out of the way, letting Scott take control. He points at the buttons Scott needs to press, but Scott levels him with a look and he backs away, but he continues to watch from a distance.
And somehow, Scott doesn’t fumble it. He has trouble getting the drawer open at first, but then he pushes and pulls it out like Isaac does and the woman leaves with her change and her copy of Pride and Prejudice, smiling. And when he turns to look at Isaac with a prideful grin on his face, Isaac is already smiling widely at him.
“You’re a natural…” Isaac laughs, scoots closer and Scott lets him. They’re shoulder-to-shoulder at the counter, and Scott feels their breathing sync.
“Why’d you move to Seattle, Scott?” Isaac whispers.
There it is. The question that was so inevitable, he couldn’t avoid it forever. His heart leaps up in his throat, and then it stops. Clogs itself in his throat and stays there. Scott can’t breathe. Can’t explain the ragged feeling that he feels crawl up and settles in his chest. Like a snake slithering underneath his skin.
Isaac says his name distantly, but Scott just can’t bring himself to answer. Can’t find his voice when Isaac’s looking at him like that. With worry and fear and something that Scott can’t quite figure out across his face. And instead of trying to figure it out, Scott grabs his jacket off of the stool and stumbles towards the door.
“Uhm… I’m sorry I have to- I have to go. I- I promised my best friend we’d- we’d get dinner together.” He stutters in sync with his misaligned footsteps, pushes through the red door and the little bell rings above him and he leaves Isaac standing behind the counter fumbling for words. Isaac doesn’t even call out his name, just watches him go with his hands gripping the wooden countertop.
+++++
Put out my hand to you for comfort,--
And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew.
+++++
Stiles doesn’t ask why he looks like he’s seen a ghost, but he does yell “Why didn’t you come home last night? I’ve been calling you for hours!” the moment Scott crosses the threshold into their apartment.
Scott trembles in the doorway, “I uh- I left my phone with Mason last night.” He stutters out, and Stiles raises his eyebrows all the way to his forehead. “And where’d you go? I called your phone and this… Mason guy said you left with some guy at the bar!”
“Isaac…” Scott replies slowly, as if saying his name is taboo. He spits it onto the carpet and lets it fester. “Scott, I really don’t care about the name of your hookup-” “He’s my friend. We ran into each other and I crashed at his apartment.”
Stiles backs off, but only for a moment, “You couldn’t call?” He was worried, and if Scott knows Stiles (and he does, better than anyone), then he knows his friend would’ve already been calling his bosses and putting out a missing persons report on Scott McCall. “I’m sorry…” Scott lies, because he’s not sorry for not calling, or for not calling home. This was one of the best mornings he’s had in nearly three months. Three months of seeing Allison behind his eyelids and mistaking cars backfiring for gunshots and petrichor scratching at his nostrils.
Petrichor is Isaac’s favorite word, he’d told him while they were aimlessly wandering through the aisles and playing twenty questions. They’d only gotten to question eight when they got distracted by a bird flying into the window and Scotts heroic yet slightly misguided attempt at helping it. Isaac had laughed when Scott nervously sputtered out “I’m a vet! Or well, I will be!” and then tried to catch the bird and immediately failing.
“Scott? What happened?” Stiles' voice brings him back, and he guides Scott towards the couch with a hand on his elbow.
And it takes a minute, but Scott whispers “I don’t know if I can do this…” “Do what? Live in Seattle? Be a veterinarian?”
“Move on.” His voice cracks, and he fights the heat behind his eyes. How do you move on from Allison Argent? How do you fight a hot summer's day? How do you say goodbye to a bright starlit sky?
Stiles doesn’t say anything, lets Scott think over everything he’s said. But the silence doesn’t last long, and Scott stands. Brushes imaginary dust off of his jeans and realizes he’s still wearing Isaac’s sweater. “I need to go back.” He says, and for what reason he does not know but the urge is stronger than Scott’s own willpower.
Stiles stands too, grips Scott’s bicep, “Go where?” “I need to fix it. I need to- I need to tell him.”
Trading sins. He needs to trade his deepest regret for Isaac. Needs to put every single one of his chips in the pot and say It’s yours if you want to take it from me, but I come with it . He doesn’t care if Isaac rejects him when he finds out, but he needs to do this.
Melissa used to say that books have whole lives within them. That to move on is to find closure in the final chapter of that life and get ready for a new introduction. And maybe it’s not love. Maybe it’s not because I love you but it is the cold bucket of water he dumps over the flames. Drenches the burning and finds comfort in the chill. But it is a new chapter that Scott cannot wait to read. He wants to jump past it, right into the first chapter, but rain pounds outside the window and Scott remembers.
He hated Seattle. Hated it for the rain and the fog and the useless amount of Tuesdays it came with.
Seattle’s starting to cool down for autumn and the coming winter, but Scott is warming to it.
He doesn’t wait for Stiles, his shoes are already on, so he walks right back out the way he came and doesn’t look for his friend. The door shuts behind him and doesn't reopen, and Scott still doesn’t look back.
He walks all the way back to the bookstore without an umbrella, doesn’t care that he’s soaked head to toe as he crosses each intersection, feels rain dripping down his face and soaks the green fabric through but he still doesn’t look back.
The little bell ringing is the only reason he realizes he’s back at the shop, and Isaac scrambles to his feet. “Scott! You- where’d you go?”
I’m sorry , but it doesn’t come out. Scott just stares at him, swallows resentment and pity and need and shivers from the cold.
I need to tell you everything, but you might hate me for it , he tries again, but his mouth doesn’t open and the words stall in his throat. Isaac raises his eyebrows, expects anything except the silence that Scott can’t seem to find a way past.
I’ll explain it all just give me a minute , and it’s like Isaac knows, sees it in Scott’s eyes and he walks around the counter. It’s a short four steps between the desk and the door, but it feels like an eternity. Isaac reaches out, takes Scott’s hands in his. “I’m not gonna hate you. And I’m not gonna hurt you…” he whispers, squeezes Scott’s fingers in his palm.
And it doesn’t seem to work, so Isaac reaches around him, turns the lock on the door and flips the sign to “Be back in thirty!” and pulls Scott away from the entrance. Away from the exit.
He settles him on the ugly blue couch, takes in a deep breath through his mouth and exhales through his nose, beckons for Scott to follow. Scott does, because he’d follow Isaac anywhere.
“My mom died when I was a kid…” Isaac says out of nowhere, almost startles Scott out of his breathing exercise. “I don't remember her all that often. But I loved her. And then my brother Camden, he was uh… KIA. Killed in action, when I was eleven. And he was my hero. He always told me that I shouldn’t want to grow up to be like him and I didn’t understand that because to me he was… he was the sun.”
Isaac swallows hard, Scott watches the way his hair falls down into his face and he wants to fix it but Isaac’s grip on his hands are too tight. Too comforting. He’s leaving a wet spot on the couch and honestly he doesn’t care because they’re touching in three different places and Scott wants to die.
“So it was me and my… my father, for six years. And I started to realize what Camden meant. My father was an angry man after Camden died. I don’t know if he was always like that, if my big brother just kept me from seeing it, but he changed after Cam…” He squeezes Scott’s hand tighter, clenches his teeth. “But then he died when I was seventeen and they said I was a ‘ward of the state’ because no one else would take me. I bounced between foster homes until I was eighteen, and I ended up staying with my last foster family for a few years before they had to move and I- I couldn’t go with them. Couldn’t leave Camden alone here.”
It’s so different now, seeing Isaac this vulnerable, a frown covering his usually bright face. Scott wants to kiss it away.
Woah. He didn’t expect that. He walked in here expecting to be turned away, to be sent home with his heart trailing behind him, shattered like fiberglass.
Isaac looks up, red brimming his eyes and faith a little more than broken and Scott leans in just enough to where their shoulders touch. But he doesn’t lean all the way in, not far enough and not nearly as close as he wants, but Isaac meets him halfway and it seems like a good start.
Isaac cocks his head expectantly, the same way he had the day they learned each other's last names. “You remember I mentioned my uhm- my ex? Her name was Allison and she- I guess she was my sun. Everything revolved around her. And then she died… and it was my fault and- instead of staying in my tiny hometown I ran away to Seattle.” He registers Isaac’s thumbs brush over his knuckles, but he doesn’t necessarily feel them.
“But she’s still everywhere I turn and I’m… scared . Isaac, I am terrified that she’s never gonna go away. And everyone tells me it was an accident. That I wasn’t the one who shot her but I still look in the mirror and I think what if it was me? I made her stop at that gas station. All I did was hold her while she bled out and I couldn’t do anything. I was frozen . I couldn’t do anything.” He repeats it, again and again until his voice fades out with the still thundering rain.
Isaac lets go of Scott’s hand and reaches up, brushes wet hair off of his cheek, “Did you pull the trigger?”
No one has asked him that before. No one ever put the gun in his hands and forced him to fire it. Because he didn’t shoot her himself.
Scott shakes his head, unconsciously leans into Isaac’s touch. “You didn’t pull it. You didn’t kill her. Allison-” Her name sounds foreign in Isaac’s mouth, through a wet choked off-sob for a girl he didn’t even know, “Allison died in your arms. Died with someone she loved.” He whispers, and Scott pulls away.
“But she didn’t. She died hooked up to monitors and IV’s and I wasn’t even there. I wasn’t at the hospital when she died. Her dad told me to go. To get cleaned up, I’d been there for three days at that point. And she died while I was gone.” It’s a strange fact to state, Scott didn’t kill her, but he wasn’t there when she did pass. Maybe he was there when she lost consciousness from the blood loss. Maybe he held her hand in the ambulance. Maybe he waited in the ER all night just for them to tell him she had a forty-percent chance of making it through emergency surgery.
But he wasn’t there.
“Or maybe she held on long enough for you to say goodbye. Maybe she didn’t want you to be there. To spare you that pain.” There he goes again, with the mind reading and the perfect words. But he says them so easily. So easily because Isaac didn’t know Allison. Didn’t know the kind of person she was, but somehow he’s got it all right. Somehow he’s got Allison’s brain chemistry down to a T and Scott is still in denial.
He whispers, “Moving on is really scary…” and Isaac hums in response, nods and says “I can help you. We could… learn together?”
And it’s everything Scott needs to hear because he nods through bleary eyes and his pounding heart and Isaac pulls him in for a deep embrace. Holds his head with one hand and pushes his face into Isaac’s shoulder and whispers “I got you. You’re okay. It’ll all be okay.”
Isaac doesn’t hate him. Doesn’t turn him away or force him back out into the pouring rain.
Isaac holds him until his tears pass and he’s halfway dry, until Scott pulls away and they’re so close but a million miles away from each other and neither of them want to close the gap.
So neither of them do. Isaac has Scott write down his phone number, says he’s going to call his phone and have Mason bring it to the shop if he can, and then he sends Scott upstairs. Tells him to change his clothes (“there’s pajamas in the second dresser drawer on the left”) and crawl into bed and Isaac will meet him up there soon enough with hot tea.
It’s domestic, purely blissful and Scott knows Stiles is probably losing his fucking mind but he doesn’t care. Not when he’s wrapped under the weighted duvet that reeks of worn paper and petrichor and Isaac, so he snuggles himself deeper.
Isaac wakes him up with the tea he promised and Scott’s phone, fully charged, and a message from Mason to feel better. There's a couple million missed messages and calls and voicemails, but Scott throws it on the floor and leaves it there. “Thank you,” he whispers with his head leant against the wall. They’re still sitting on Isaac’s bed, both sideways with their backs on the wall. Isaac’s long legs are stretched out in front of him, nearly dangling off of the side, and Scott is cross legged.
The other man smiles softly and bright and nods. He doesn’t have to ask “for what?” because the evidence is right in front of him.
+++++
Under my hand the moonlight lay!
Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
+++++
They fall into a routine. Scott doesn’t know what it is, but that’s what Stiles starts calling it. You’re different , he says the first morning after Scott spills essentially his entire soul to Isaac and Scott only chuckles and shrugs and then goes to work.
He goes to the bookstore on his lunch break, and Isaac walks up and they eat lunch together, sit either on the floor behind a tall stack of books, or on the stools behind the register, or on the itchy blue couch (and on one occasion upstairs in Isaac’s kitchen) and they learn how to move on.
Scott tells Isaac about Allison, and then the conversation veers away towards Beacon Hills. Towards Stiles and Lydia and his mom and Chris. About a tiny mountain-bordered town with more mysteries than truths and Isaac eats it all up. He listens to every word, asks questions every three minutes, watches Scott’s movements with wide eyes and a grin.
And Isaac tells Scott about Camden, and his mom. They stay away from the topic of his dad, and Scott hopes one day Isaac learns how to be brave about it, but he doesn’t pry. He tells him about Malia and Kira, and then Erica and Boyd, and even Derek who he doesn’t seem to know too well but he likes him anyway.
Somedays, they don’t talk about themselves. Some days Scott comes into the shop quieter than usual and they sit in silence with books in their laps and their individual lunches, and don’t speak at all. Some days, they talk about the book shop.
“So, Pendragon? Like Arthur?” Scott asks on one of those days, and Isaac hums and nods through a mouthful of rice. “Mhm. What about it?” He asks, and Scott shrugs.
“Well I mean… if you’re the one who oversees everything, would that make you him? Arthur?” Scott sets his book down, the seventh Merlin book, and he still hasn’t told Isaac he never finished the first. Isaac doesn’t even take a moment to think. “What? No way! I think the king would have to be Peter.”
“Then who are you?”
Scott guesses Galahad, or even Merlin, but Isaac raises one arm in the sky like he’s raising an invisible sword and bounces on the cushions of the blue couch. “Lancelot, of course! Arthur's most trusted!” Scott snorts around his straw, and Isaac draws his brows together.
“Uhm… Lancelot actually stole Arthur's wife in the original tales…” “What! Oh my god, really? I thought he was just… the white knight!”
And Scott laughs harder than he has in weeks the way Isaac’s face goes pink, “No. No he was uhm… he was written as a romance character. He was the queen's personal champion. And when he seduced Guinevere-” Isaac scoots the smallest inch closer, “They fell madly in love, so much so that when they’re separated or Lancelot begins to doubt her love for him, he goes mad. But when Arthur discovers the affair, Camelot becomes embroiled in a civil war. One side fights for the king, and the other fights for true love. Arthur dies in battle with a deep hatred for Lancelot.”
Isaac is so close now Scott can feel his breath on his face, and his heart upticks, but then it calms. “How’s it end?” Isaac asks, “Their love story?”
Scott swallows the lump in his throat, as Isaac pulls both of their lunches and their books down to the floor, gets in his space like he belongs because he does.
“Uhm… it varies but… in almost all of them, they die apart, never having seen the face of their lover in life again. In one he becomes a monk, and she a nun and he dies six weeks after her.” His voice turns from strong to a whisper, and Isaac’s breath gets hotter, and they’re touching in every spot Scott wants to be except for the one that really counts.
“Scott?” “Yeah?” “I don’t uh- I don’t want to be like Lancelot after all.”
Scott freezes, stares up in ice-blue eyes, and all he can think to say is, “Yeah?”
But Isaac gets the memo and he nods, mimics him and says “Yeah” and he leans forward and Scott meets him halfway and it’s the point in the movie where fireworks go off. Because Isaac kisses him like he’s never wanted anything more in his entire life. He cups the back of Scott’s head with his hand the same way he held him the day everything changed and Scott follows his lead.
His neurons fire off twenty at a time and the bonfire surges upwards, reaches the telephone poles and ignites every tree and spreads into a wildfire that’ll burn all of Seattle down if he lets it. He’s no longer cold, lets the fire warm him as he loops his arms around Isaac’s neck and drags him backwards, forgets the sign on the door and the bookshop and his job and pulls Isaac closer.
Scott doesn’t hate Seattle anymore. In fact, he thinks there might be more to the city than what meets the eye.
+++++
But if I weep it will not matter,--
Ah, it is good to feel you here!
+++++
Stiles makes fun of him for six weeks. Laughs that only a nerd can pull a guy by talking about the knights of the round table, but later he pats Scott’s shoulder and says “I’m proud of you” and they don’t talk about what he’s proud of but they both know anyway.
And Scott keeps expecting Isaac to disappear altogether. To find out that the bookshop and the ugly blue couch and the stools and the apartment don’t exist at all, and that he’s only imagining the best part of his life, but then Stiles is meeting Isaac for the first time and he realizes it’s all real. Isaac brings along Malia and Kira, promises to introduce them to Boyd and Erica another time and then blushes hard when Scott says he’s already met Boyd.
Lydia’s in town too, and the very first thing she says to an already nervous Isaac is a threat that Scott tries desperately to stop but she’s backed up by Stiles, who flashes his badge behind her and makes vaguely threatening faces that actually only look like he’s constipated.
Scott pulls him away from the small crowd forming in his kitchen, and asks “You doing okay?” Isaac nods, smiles at him like he’s the sun, and then captures his lips in another kiss. There’s a crowd of “awww” and “ooh”’s coming from the kitchen, and Scott thinks someone is taking a picture but he really doesn’t care.
One month of dating lands on Christmas Eve, and Scott invites Isaac back to California for the holidays. His mom would love to meet him, and Isaac accepts the offer with bleary eyes and a warm embrace.
Melissa loves him, because why wouldn’t she, and then she smirks knowingly at Scott. She’s even got a stocking hung up specifically for Isaac, who nearly breaks down when he sees it and hugs her tightly. Isaac’s never had a real mother-figure in his life, and Scott is more than willing to share.
And then Isaac goes with Scott to Allison’s grave. He’s only seen it once, the day of her funeral, but he feels exposed going nearly five months after her death, with no real closure surrounding it. They never did catch her killer, came close, but lost him at the very last second. Even Scott’s dad had tried to help, pulled rank as best he could and used the resources he had, but it all slipped through the police's fingers.
And Scott thinks maybe it’s better this way. Because if they did catch him, there would be a trial and Scott would be called forward as a material witness. They’d make him recount the story of finding Allison dying next to her car until every ear in the courtroom was bleeding with his sobs. And then they’d make him say it all again one more time, just to really torture him. But Isaac walks him through what to say just in case it does come down to that using his big law school education and Scott feels alright.
It’s a delicate headstone. Carved into a moss covered gray marble with a bundle of fresh flowers and a photo of Allison and her mother laid at the base of it.
Allison Argent
1994 – 2019
Après la pluie, le beau temps
After the rain, good weather.
Scott feels his throat tighten.
Isaac’s hand finds his, their fingers linking together automatically. She’d be proud of him. Happy for him. Excited even.
And the world around him shrinks, for just a few moments, to just the three of them. Scott. Isaac. And Allison’s grave. The bubble forms and Scott feels invincible one more time, just for long enough to kneel down and unlink his and Isaac’s hands. He kisses his thumb, presses it to the cold stone covered in mid-morning dew, right above her name and whispers, “We’re gonna be okay.”
For the first time in a long time, Scott is starting to believe it.