many years have passed

Isaac loves the moon. And he loves Erica and Boyd, and he loves Malia and Kira. And he loves the bookstore. And he loves his mother and his brother, even after all these years.
Isaac doesn’t think he has enough room in his heart for anymore love. And then Scott comes walking into the shop with a crooked smile and needing an escape from the rain and the past.
He thinks he can fit one more person to love on his ever growing list.

Notes:

For sunmoontruth.

title and included poetry is from I Walked Past A House Where I Lived Once by Yehuda Amichai

Work Text:

+++++

Isaac was never a huge fan of science in high school. He liked reading and history and debate club. (Isaac loved debate club, actually.)

So he doesn’t know much about earth science, but he knows about astronomy. He knows about stars and planets and meteoroids. He knows about the moon. Actually, Isaac loves the moon. Used to stare up at it at night with his mom and chart the constellations. That was when she was still alive. The last good memory he has of her before she got sick; they’re laying on one of the hills behind the cemetery, his dad is there late with clients, and they’re staring up at the stars with their arms behind their heads waiting on him. Julia is wearing a long white dress, with lace-front poofs on the sleeves and she’s got this smile on her face. Soft and maternal and it covers Isaac like a warm blanket.

And she whispers “Isaac David, you were born to do great things. Good things. You’re brighter than the stars…” and he shakes his little head, all of seven years old and whispers no I’d like to be the moon, and Julia smiles and nods, and then reaches over and brushes his hair from his cheek.

And that’s the end of the memory, still a little bit hazy around the edges, dreamlike and euphoric. It’s how he’d like to remember her. Young and happy. Not pale skin and blood transfusions and hospital beds and code blues.

She’s gone within a year.

(Isaac finds out later, much much later when he’s twenty-one and takes a class about etymology as an elective for his degree that Julia means “youthful” in roman form. He thinks it’s fitting, a woman gone at barely thirty-six with years and years left within her. So that’s how Isaac imagines her, with pink-freckled skin and her curly brown hair before it started falling out in frizzy clumps. Imagines her as the woman she was on that hill, instead of the one she was buried as underneath it.)

After her, Camden goes quiet. He’s fifteen when Julia dies. Is one of the pallbearers at her funeral, alongside their father, and he’s got a blossoming bruise on his shoulder that he hides under his black suit from where their father throws him into the wall the night before after a half a bottle of Jim Beam. Isaac cries his little eyes out as they lower her into the ground, the first in a long line of Lahey family tragedies, but Camden just stares. Just watches the casket sink deeper and deeper until she’s completely gone from view.

Victor’s different after that. Stays at work later and later until some nights Isaac doesn’t see him until the next morning before school. Seeing is an understatement really. Actually, Isaac hears his snores as Camden pushes him towards the door with his backpack half off his shoulder and a microwaved waffle in his hands. He meets Erica the first day of fourth grade and it’s instant love, but not in the way Isaac knows. It’s holding hands on the playground so neither of them fall off of the jungle-gym and sneaking notes during math when the teacher isn’t looking and begging Camden to take them to see the newest Batman movie because they need someone over thirteen to accompany them.

It’s a love Isaac doesn’t completely understand but he steps into it with his eyes closed.

The only other friend he makes after that is Matt, and they swap comic books at Isaac’s house once a week and have matching superman and batman backpacks, and it’s not like the love Isaac has with Erica, or the one he feels for Camden, but it’s small and twists in his gut, like it’s not supposed to fit. And then the party happens, and Matt blames Camden. Blames Isaac. Blames Victor. And Isaac can’t exactly disagree with the third one but it’s not fair that his dad’s actions make him lose a friend.

But those next three years are the best he’s ever had. The best, Isaac sometimes feels, he’ll ever get. And he’s fine with that, because with Camden it was ice cream after swim meets and learning how to skateboard at twilight and the one time Camden gets pulled over for speeding and makes Isaac pinky promise to not tell dad. Isaac feels so adult after that, because no one asks a ten-year old to make a promise and trust that he’ll keep it. Only grown-ups do that.

Camden tells him that he’s going to enlist in the Marines three days after the second anniversary of Julia’s death. That he’s going to become a hero and help save lives and make their mom proud. At first Isaac thinks it’s cool. That he’ll be able to tell his friends at school that his brother is his hero and mean it literally.

Camden dies protecting three other soldiers– protecting his friends –from enemy-fire four weeks before his twentieth birthday. He’s supposed to be coming home in time for Halloween. Their father answers the knock at the door to two men in uniforms on his doorstep, who presents Victor with a folded uniform and two letters. Victor doesn’t react, just drops his trembling hands to his side (Isaac still isn’t sure if the shake was from emotion, or from the alcohol), and Isaac pulls the first letter from his loose grasp.

To the family of Pvt. Camden V. Lahey,

It is with great regret and remorse that the U.S Marine Corps. informs you of the passing of your relative, Private Camden Lahey of battalion 1162. Private Lahey’s efforts to serve and save his fellow company-members during a credible threat against his encampment cost him his life, but was invaluable nonetheless…

And the other one is addressed directly to Isaac, and Victor has the decency not to pry. Camden's final letter, the one every soldier writes before a big mission just in case he doesn’t make it home.

Isaac,

I hope you never have to read this buddy. I’m sorry if you are. I’m sorry I won’t get to see you go to high school, or prom, or graduate. I’m sorry I won’t get to tease you in front of your first girlfriend and I’m sorry I won’t get to mess with you at school anymore. I’m sorry I’ll miss your wedding.

But mostly, I’m sorry for not being the hero you needed me to be.

I’m trying to make mom proud, but I also want to make you proud. Proud to call me your brother. Proud to tell people about me…

And every bone in Isaac’s body is tense as he reads it out loud at bedtime that night, grips it in his hands and goes over every line as if there’s a secret message within it.

But then they place a folded up flag in Isaac’s lap at the funeral, and an award that the chaplain calls the Distinguished Service Medal that Isaac keeps on his dresser until he moves out. As an adult, Isaac will remember that he didn’t even flinch during the twenty-one gun salute. Maybe because he’d already started getting used to the breaking of glasses and the slamming of doors, and the loud pops of the gun don’t have anything on Victor Lahey after two bottles.

He doesn’t remember when “dad” turns into “my father” and “sir”, but he also doesn’t remember when Victor starts hitting him the way he hit Camden. And Isaac was unlucky in that way, because Camden never let Isaac see it happen. Never let him see him cry or tear up or prepare himself for an inevitable when. Sometimes, when he lays awake at night holding onto a new bruise, he resents his brother for that.

He starts officially working for his father when he turns fourteen, the same age Camden was when he started. Starts by polishing grave stones and helping prep caskets, and then he turns sixteen and gets his license and starts operating the machinery. Digs the graves for the next unfortunate soul to pass through this cemetery on their road to the afterlife.

And then suddenly he’s seventeen and it’s been six years since Camden and nine since Julia and Isaac can barely remember the last five. It’s filled with trying his hardest, but still being terrified of Victor when they sit down for dinner. Keeping his head down and joining the debate club to keep himself busy after school. Working working working until he’s nearly late for his actual job and Victor levels him with a glare from across a lawn full of tombstones before stalking back into the office.

Victor stops pulling his punches and starts using chains and a deep freezer.

Isaac lives in a fear that stays settled in the bottom of his stomach like sediment. Like graveyard dirt that was shoved down his throat.

The police pull him out of class the February after he turns seventeen. Sit him down with the principal, and the sheriff pushes a box of tissues slightly closer and whispers, “Isaac… where were you last night?”

Isaac’s stomach sinks deep and clenches. Because last night his dad threw a glass at his head after finding out his calculus grade and Isaac ran out, grabbed his bike and rode all the way to Erica’s house in tears with blood smeared on his cheek. “I was uhm… I was with my friend. Erica Reyes? I was with her and her family.” He mutters, sounds almost unsure but it’s all true. And the sheriff nods, writes down Erica’s name, and then he leans closer.

“Son, I hate to tell you this but… your father was murdered last night. And a neighbor, Jackson Whittemore? He said he heard you and your father in a verbal altercation that ended with you both leaving the house separately.” Isaac knows the tone, has heard it during debate meets a hundred-thousand times and the butterfly stitch across his cheek isn’t helping.

They think he did it. Isaac is in retrograde. It’s boys, your mother is very sick and it’s it is with great regret and remorse and it’s you know I’ll have to punish you .

Deep down, Isaac wishes he did.

But instead he swallows hard, pretends to be shaken. Uses every ounce of acting talent he’s learned by pretending everything is okay to act devastated. He lets his hands shake and his throat close up with a choked off sob, but none of it is for Victor.

No, Isaac cries for himself, because he’s free. He’s free of Victor's grasp. Of the empty bottles and the broken glass and the marble tombstones. Of the freezer.

Isaac buries his head in his hands for himself. He lets the officers take him back to the station and question him for himself. He returns to a big empty brick house all alone and packs a bag for himself, takes his clothes and a photo of him, Julia and Camden on a bright summer day and a stack of his mothers books and Camden’s old skateboard and his medals. And then, he grabs a dark green sweater out of his brother's long shut closet, with a hood and drawstrings but no front pocket and pulls it over his head.

It still smells like Camdens shampoo, even after all these years, and Isaac swears in that moment he’s never coming back. He steals the photo frame off of Camden's dresser, of the two boys with ice cream dripping down their cheeks, taken after a swim meet at their favorite ice cream place. The one Isaac hasn’t gone back to since Camden deployed and probably never will.

Victor Lahey has no funeral. Isaac claims his body and has him cremated, and then he dumps the ashes into the ocean as he stares at Mount Rainier, letting the tide wash the burnt body of his broken father away and into the coral reef below.

They never do find his killer, and the case goes cold and forgotten in some police officers filing cabinet and Isaac is glad . Because he’s not religious and he doesn’t believe in ghosts but he’d read somewhere that a soul who was murdered can’t rest until its killer is brought to justice, and Isaac thinks that an eternity of restlessness is a far greater punishment than what he would’ve faced in life. The abuse is discovered in the investigation. More aptly the freezer is discovered. Isaac becomes a pariah before he becomes pitied, and kids at school look at him differently when rumors reach the public.

Do you think he did it? Did he kill his own father? Maybe Erica is just covering for him and they killed him together? Did he really lock his son in a freezer? Why didn’t he ever say anything to anyone?

But Isaac is a ward of the state. The Reyes’, even though they love him, can’t afford to take in another kid, and Isaac doesn’t have any other family besides his mom’s third cousin who lives in Texas and that wants nothing to do with the son of Victor Lahey. So he bounces. Bounces between foster homes for an entire year, goes through four different families before he turns eighteen. And the last ones are nice. Wonderful even. A mom and a dad and their young daughter, and who can’t have any more children, but who own a house only a little smaller than his childhood one and need faces to fill it.

And the Lahey family home grows vacant. Everyone in the city knows about the basement. About the nail scratches on the floor and the chains locked around a white deep-freezer that still sits down there. The brick grows moss and the winding vines engulf the side of the house.

Then he turns eighteen, and he gets a letter in the mail from a business manager, and suddenly he’s eleven again.

Dear Mr. Isaac Lahey,

Following your turning eighteen years of age, it is with delight that we inform you that you are set to inherit the estate of your father, the deceased Mr. Victor Lahey. This includes the property at 515 Erstwhile Road, as well as the city cemetery your family owns…

With both properties comes Victor's entire worth, which has been festering and growing for a year. Isaac’s never seen that many zeros in his life. And college is expensive, so he keeps the money, but he sells the house. Hires someone to clear it out of everything he left in it and puts it up on the market. And the cemetery falls onto his shoulders, but he hires someone to manage it because Isaac doesn’t know how to run a business. He’s barely eighteen.

So he starts school, meets Kira in his Introduction to American Government class and then Malia in his Criminal Justice 101 class. Erica meets Boyd, and it’s pretty much love at first sight. Isaac doesn’t stop hearing about “the boy in my psych class” for three weeks, and then he introduces all of them to each other and they’re the closest group of friends in Seattle.

His foster family moves away to New York, they offer him a life with them, permanent and safe, but Isaac can’t leave Seattle. His family's graves are there. His friends and the only connection to a world outside of death is there. Maybe it would be good for him to get out of the city, but then he shakes his head solemnly and whispers “I can’t leave.” His foster mom nods, accepts it, and then tells him “you can always come visit for Christmas”.

He has nowhere to go once he finishes his undergraduate schooling. There are too many students to fill the dorms, and Malia and Kira are renting a tiny apartment together three blocks from the school, so Isaac crashes on their couch. All of his fathers money is going to his tuition, and then the rest into his law school education, and he’s not exactly got the best credit score so renting in the city kinda sucks.

Malia gets tired of the arrangement a month in. She doesn’t say it outright, but Isaac’s always been able to tell when people are getting tired of him.

“You can always just… get a job?” Erica offers after he begins to mope about again, and Isaac laughs out loud. The last, and only, job he had ended with tragedy. He doesn’t exactly have a former employer to be referred by, which is the basis of his argument, but Boyd says “What about come work with me? We need some hands at the shop.” And Isaac hesitantly agrees at Kira’s behest.

Peter isn’t the easiest person to get along with, but Isaac falls in love with Pendragon Books the moment he steps through the threshold. He falls in love with the towering shelves and the unorganized sections and the stacks of books that cover the counter and the ugly blue couch that itches his skin that's shoved in one of the aisles, pushed between two shelves and with mismatched floral throw pillows.

He falls in love with the aroma. It’s a constant state of easily-obtained love, books all well worn and some are dogeared and some have commentary written on the inside and Isaac loves it. He doesn’t think he’s capable of loving it more than anything though, but it settles in his heart right next to Camden and skateboarding and the hill behind the cemetery with his mom and Isaac thinks he can build great memories here. Some of the greatest.

He learns fast, picks up things quickly and spends his downtime stocking or cleaning or reading. He does a lot of reading. More than he’s done since Camden.

And then Derek, Peter’s nephew who's been living in the apartment upstairs, moves out and in with his girlfriend a month after Isaac starts working there. Isaac doesn’t know Derek horribly well, but the few times they do interact, he’s tolerable yet grumpy. And then Isaac does the math and realizes that this Derek is the same Derek that Camden tutored in math in high school, and he says to him one day “I think you knew my brother…” and Derek doesn’t deny it, but he does look sadly at the floor and whispers “he was a good guy”.

And the day Derek leaves, Isaac says to Peter, “Are you gonna put the apartment up for rent?” It’s meant as a joke, and he doesn’t know how but Peter writes up a rental agreement the next day, presents it to Isaac during his lunch break.

Isaac has no idea what he’s doing. He has no furniture, doesn’t even have an actual bed, but he signs it without thinking.

Erica helps him pick out decorations, and for the first time since he was seventeen, he has a place to hang all of his photos that he took from his childhood home. He arranges them in a collage on the wall, surrounds that picnic photo with others from highschool and college.

And it takes a few months of building, of finding random decorations and throw blankets and pillows and pots and pans but Isaac builds a home . A home that's not going to get ripped out from under him without warning. A home that’s more than bedrooms that belong to ghosts, and the floral couch cushions, and the basement. No, Isaac has an ugly rug and a comfy couch and pea-green colored drapes that bunch on the floor, but Isaac doesn’t mind. Because it’s more homely than home ever was.

Isaac doesn’t know much about science, but he is proficient in history. He knows about the past, about his past, and he still keeps going. He’s starting not to care about the beginning either, because before was then, and he wants to live in the now.

+++++

I walked past a house where I lived once:

a man and a woman are still together in the whispers there.

+++++

Isaac asks for the day off three weeks in advance.

It’s year seventeen. Year fourteen. Year eight. And instead of taking the individual day, Isaac packs a picnic and goes to the graveyard. None of his friends know he does it, not even Erica. In fact, she’s the only one who’s ever even seen their graves. The only one who knows where his heart is buried alongside them.

It starts out sunny, and Isaac sits between his mothers and his brother's headstones and reads out loud like he’s soothing a child to sleep. And then he tells them updates while laying in the grass watching the darkening clouds pass. He’ll come back here in November for Camdens birthday, and again on Christmas, and then one more time in February for Julia’s birthday.

But today, Isaac is turning twenty-five. He’s turning twenty-five in a graveyard without any family to celebrate with. They’re buried on the same hill where Isaac used to stargaze. An eternal summer night watching the constellations shift and Isaac thinks this is where he’d like to spend his afterlife.

He blows out a single candle on a cupcake from the batch Erica brought him early this morning, before her shift and before the sun was even up.

And when he gets ready to leave, he cleans off their headstones with his sleeve and kisses his fingers and presses them first into Julia’s, and then into Camdens. That one, he holds a smidge longer, because he loves his mother but he didn’t know her in life. Still doesn’t really know her even in death. But Camden. He knew Camden. He knew Camden for three whole years longer than he knew his own mother and it makes him squirm at night.

Isaac packs up his backpack, but he leaves the flowers and the printed copy of the photo he’d taken from the house, of all of them on a picnic on a day like today.

Isaac leaves the graveyard with no intention to return until November twenty-third.

He takes a detour on the way home, walks with his head down all the way to Erstwhile Road. The house sold five years ago, to a family moving from Boston with no idea about the history of the house and two boys six years apart. He only met them once as a part of the lease signing, and the mother asked “How do you own such a nice house at twenty? Why aren’t you taking it for yourself?”

And Isaac wants to spare her, and himself, the pain of acknowledging what happened so he forces a smile and says “I inherited it. I don’t need it.” and leaves it at that and if she wants to know more she can ask the neighbors. The Whittemores are long gone, packed up a month after Victor died and moved to London, but the rest of the city knows what happened here.

And for five years Isaac has steadfastly avoided the house, the neighborhood, the whole damn block. Some days he wonders if the rest of them knew what was happening, the way Jackson had known, and stayed silent.

Ms. Baylor, the neighbor to the right, is sitting on her porch when he walks past her house and stops in front of five-one-five and she stands when she recognizes him. Ms. Baylor and her husband used to watch Isaac when he was a kid and no one else could, but then Edgar died about ten years ago and she’s still up in the same picket-fence house.

“Isaac Lahey, is that you?” She calls from her porch, and Isaac has to peel his eyes away from the brick house in front of him. He smiles, steps closer to her wrap-around porch but doesn’t say anything.

Her face grows fond, and she places her hand over her heart. “Happy birthday, Isaac.” She says, and Isaac actually does feel happy for a moment, and then he waves his goodbyes, has no intention of staying here longer than he should so he keeps walking. He expects to be followed. By a voice or a car or a bike, but the road behind him is still and quiet and Isaac lets it rest that way.

+++++

Many years have passed with the quiet hum

of the staircase bulb going on

and off and on again.

+++++

Isaac doesn’t think about it much after that. Tries to look forward instead of dwelling on the past, so he tries his best to move on and keep going but the end of September takes forever to blend into October and Isaac is so tired all the time. He really just wants to sleep and it's getting hard to get out of bed every morning to open the shop, so he’s not really in a great mood half the time.

He’s restocking shelves this particular day, or trying to. The shelf shifts every time he tries to put something on it and he told Boyd two weeks ago that they needed to get together to fix it but neither of them have had the sense to actually do it. He’s got the last one just nearly up there when the front bell rings and he sighs. “Welcome to Pendragon Books!” He calls out, finally gets it stacked just right, but then the nail that's barely holding the shelf in place snaps out of the wood and the entire thing falls. Gives way and the entire stack of newly stocked books falls on him.

Isaac drops when a rather large thesaurus hits him in the head, lets out a string of “fuck” and “shit” and some other words he doesn’t really remember saying, and then he’s at the bottom of a pile of books splayed open and across the floor with his eyes closed because he thinks if he opens them now he wont be able to see straight.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” The customer asks, and Isaac feels him pull books away but Isaac waves his hands in the air and stumbles to his feet, letting the books slide off of him and to the floor. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” he stretches to his feet, looks upwards at the absent shelf space, “I told Boyd we needed to get that shelf fixed. Damnit.” He whispers, and he sees the other man out of the corner of his eyes, realizes he’s just cursed in front of a customer. “Sorry! I am so sorry, uhm… Welcome to Pendragon Books! What can I help you with?” He stammers.

The man doesn’t say anything at first, his beige jacket patterned with rain drops, and Isaac stares back. There’s something about him he can’t quite put together, but then the man suddenly unfreezes and says “Uhm… I- uh nothing. I was just… looking I guess…” and then ducks his gaze away, “Just trying to get out of the rain.” He absent-mindedly points over his shoulder towards the door.

Isaac hadn’t heard it start up, so he steps closer to the bookcase and repeats the sentiment, which is met with “Well you were a little distracted.” And the man beckons to the surrounding mess. Isaac laughs, because it’s only a little hilarious, but the man smiles and laughs with him.

Speaking of the mess, he kneels down, figures if he’s of no use to this customer, he might as well clean it up, but then the customer bends down next to him and starts stacking. “Oh you don’t need to-” “It’s okay.” He shakes his head, “I’m a great cleaner. Just ask my roommate.”

His smile is light and there's a mole on his chin and his eyes are dark brown. They’re soft around the edges, his pupils dilating into the cornea and blending together, and Isaac can’t stop himself from smiling back. They balance the books on a nearby cart, overflowing with returns and donations and new stock that they just don’t have room for and Isaac has to rearrange some stuff but they make it work.

He rubs the back of his neck, turns towards the man and mutters, “Thanks.” “Oh it’s- it’s my pleasure. Really-” He spins in place, looking up at the higher shelves and taking in the store, “This is a… nice place. I like it.” He smiles, and Isaac nods, a small smile slowly growing and says “Me too. Why do you think I started working here.”

And it’s entirely rhetorical but the man's face lights up, “Well uhm… feel free to look around.” He gestures around them, and then points to the front, “I’ll be… up at the front if you need anything.” And he points in the vague direction of the counter and leaves him alone.

Isaac tries not to look at him as he browses, tries to focus on his poetry book and wait for him to either come up the register or leave. But there are big brown grocery bags set down by the door, and usually Isaac would say something but he finds his voice caught in his throat and he thinks he’ll let it slide this one time .

Try as hard as he does, literally burying his face in the pages of his book, but his eyes keep drifting up to the man as he wanders aimlessly. But then his single customer makes his way towards the front, staring down at the two books in his hands, and Isaac looks away before he looks up, pretends he hasn’t been watching.

And he smiles, doesn’t have to pretend, and reaches for the books he places on the counter.

Isaac doesn’t know why he does what he does next, but he looks at both hardcover books, picks the smaller one and checks the price, and rings it into the till. “You know… Arthurian copies are ‘buy one get one’ today.” He smirks and stuffs both into the bag, before reaching out for his card.

The man fumbles pulling it out of his wallet, “Oh I- I mean I didn’t see a sign-” but Isaac cuts him off with a finger to his lips, lets it rest in front of his grin, and then leans forward and whispers, “Just take it. No one else is gonna buy it.” And Isaac would be lying if he said he didn’t look at the name on the card, peek at it in his hand as he inserts it into the machine.

Scott . Scott McCall.

Scott McCall has a crooked grin and dark eyes. Scott McCall seems like the kind of person Isaac would take out to karaoke and sing the hits with. Scott McCall is a complete mystery to Isaac, and even though this is the first time they’ve met, Isaac really wants to know more about Scott McCall . Isaac wants to be his friend, and maybe deep down a little bit more, but he pushes that all the way to his toes and forgets it.

And Scott curls his lips inwards as he waits for his card, and Isaac catches himself staring and forces him to look back at the register. He extends the card, “I’m Isaac, by the way.” He says when he realizes that he has no choice but to tell him verbally, because he doesn’t wear a name tag, feels like it’s too revealing to strangers.

He raises his eyebrow, waits for Scott to offer his name up because Isaac thinks it might be just a little creepy to start calling him by his name instead of learning it, and Scott swallows hard. “Scott.” and then points at himself as if there’s any other person in the store. Isaac thinks its a little bit adorable.

“Well, Scott…” he pushes the bag across the counter, and with a bright smile and a deep breath he says “Thanks for coming in. See you later?” It’s more will I get to see you again? And less customer service come again! But Scott doesn’t seem to question it. He nods, a sharp glow in his cheeks and says “Yeah. I’ll see you.” Isaac can’t help himself from smiling wide, even when Scott picks up his grocery bags and the little bell above the door jingles as he makes his exit.

He waits until Scott is clear from all the windows before he lets himself let out a giant sigh and smiles like an idiot. He doesn’t tend to make new friends. He’s friendly, sure, three years of working here has rubbed off on him, but he hasn’t made an actual new friend since he met Boyd and it’s made him a bit of a loner when it comes to meeting new people.

He hasn’t even dated since high school, since his first and only girlfriend. It started happily and ended when Isaac told her he was gay. That he just couldn’t love her the way she absolutely wanted him to, and there had been tears between both of them, but mostly because that was the first time he’d said it in front of another person. And Kelly– she was a sweet girl, deserved more than Isaac could give her –held his hand and nodded along and said “I understand” and then broke it off in the same breath. She never muttered a word to another person about that night, and Isaac was always grateful for it.

He doesn’t know what Kelly went off to do after high school, but he heard she got married a year ago to some guy they knew in school and he’s happy for her.

And Isaac’s been drowning for years, even on dry land, had struggled to find a voice for six whole years. He missed out on so many people. On gaining so many friends. But Scott feels like he could be a potential . A potential for a new start, because Scott’s not from around here that’s for damn sure, and with him could come new people.

But at the same time, Scott is such a what if ? A walking enigma with faintly drawn lines and a featureless face and Isaac wants to solidify the lines. Fill in the blank spots with his own little drawings and doodles and handwritten notes. Isaac wants to color in between the lines of Scott McCall and flesh out a real person that’s standing right in front of him.

Isaac stares up at the tall bookshelves and lets himself feel that wave of happiness. Get excited.

And then the little bell above the red door rings and Isaac snaps himself out of it, and tries to go about his day.

+++++

The keyholes are like little wounds

where all the blood seeped out.

+++++

Isaac sees Scott three more times for the next week, and the lines are starting to fill. He thinks it’s almost every day now, because they met on a Thursday and now it’s Monday and Isaac’s starting to think it’s not a coincidence like Scott keeps suggesting it is because Scott stops in twice on Sunday on the basis that he was coming and going from work.

And Scott asks him his last name, a shot in the dark that for some reason Isaac was hoping he would be the target for. Of course, it’s by accident. Scott is staring into space across the counter from him and he mutters, “I don’t even know your last name…” with a shake in his voice, and Isaac feels his heart speed up a bit in his chest.

So Isaac laughs and throws it out, “Lahey…” and it's a full body swing. An actual offering. An extension of trust. Because one Google search of his last name and everything comes out. The basement and the murder and the investigation. His brother and his mother and his father’s obituaries. The fact that he owns the cemetery. It’s all out in the open for anyone who knows his name to find. One of the reasons he doesn’t wear a nametag.

Scott groans “I said that out loud. Didn’t I?” With his eyes shut tight and a whine in his voice. And Isaac laughs, and says “Well at least you do now…” and then he does the same thing he did last week. Raises his brow and waits for a response, because he wants to gain that trust from Scott himself.

“McCall…” Scott smiles, with stars in his eyes and rose tinted cheeks, and Isaac already knew it but it makes him happy anyway. And then Scott extends his hand and whispers “Pleasure to meet you Isaac Lahey…” and Isaac doesn’t hesitate like he usually would for a handshake. Doesn’t say “ sorry I don’t touch” or “germaphobe ” like he usually does when it comes to new people because he learned a long time ago that a handshake is how people get into your head. Make you think they’re trusted and revered when actually they’re just the plain worst.

Isaac reaches across the counter and grasps Scott’s hand in his, and they don’t shake but they do hold their hands still in midair. And Isaac swears deep down, even though he fights it, that he feels a shock between them. His skin tingles and his head feels a little wobbly but he still says, “Pleasure is all mine Scott McCall.”

And Scott beams like Isaac has just called him the most beautiful person ever.

Scott giggles (actually fucking giggles ) and their hands slip apart. Isaac clenches his fist, runs his thumb over his knuckles and sets it in his lap. Wants to savor the feeling of Scott’s hand in his.

Isaac has no clue what he’s doing. No clue at all. But his stomach twists when Scott smiles at him and he loses his breath only a little whenever he hears the bell above the door and the familiar “Hi!” But he doesn’t give a shit because Scott’s in front of him right now. Offering some form of friendship that Isaac has been chasing since he was ten.

Scott opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then thunder cracks above him and his smile and his face falls and his eyes darken. Scott looks, almost, disappointed. Isaac likes the rain because he can sit on the chair by the window back in the romance section and watch it fall outside while he works on homework or does inventory or reads. But Scott swallows hard and his exhale is shaky and Isaac wants to ask why. He wants to ask “Are you okay?” but Scott takes three solid steps backwards with his books tucked under his arm and clenches his fist.

“I’ll see you around Isaac…” he mutters, and stumbles towards the door. Isaac watches him go, watches how he hesitates under the awning before tucking his books into his jacket and breaking into a sprint down the street, trying to avoid the oncoming storm.

Isaac’s left alone in the bookshop and his smile starts to fall as he watches the rain come in and flood the street.

After he closes that night, Erica and Boyd come for dinner. Their entire group does dinner every week and it’s always a different day because none of them have the same schedule but they try to make it work. But this week Kira and Malia are out of town until Thursday, but then Erica and Boyd are leaving for Montana to visit Boyd’s sister Friday morning and Isaac doesn’t have a day off until next week because he agreed to cover all of Boyd’s shifts so frankly the universe is threatening him with collapse.

They all cook together in Isaacs' small kitchen. More like Erica kicks Boyd out to the living room because he’s not much help when it comes to cooking, and she won’t let Isaac handle the knives anymore because last time he did he sliced his pinkie open and complained for three weeks about the stitches. He knows it’s not what she’s used to, but she smiles when he apologizes for it and says “I’ve worked in worse.”

And dinner goes fine, albeit a little quiet without Kira and Malia, but then it goes bad.

Erica has a seizure, falls out of her seat and Isaac’s been helping her through them for so long that he realizes it’s about to happen before her eyes even roll back into her head and he’s at her side in seconds. There's not much they can do except let it happen, stuff a pillow under her head and start a timer when the convulsions start and just wait.

It’s shorter than usual, but it’s 45 straight seconds of having to listen and watch and it doesn’t matter how many times Isaac’s watched her have one, it still feels unreal. Out of body. Like he’s just floating there waiting for it to stop.

Isaac would be lying if he said his biggest fear wasn’t waiting for one to stop, only for her body to stop completely. Some nights, his nightmares aren’t about his father or his brother. On rare nights Isaac watches his best friend shut down and he can’t stop it from happening because he’s just frozen in place. And then he wakes up in a cold sweat and has to call Erica just to make sure she’s okay and then swear up and down that he is too.

Erica and Boyd leave after she regains her bearings, tension spreading across the apartment so heavily that Isaac doesn’t know what to do except clean. He scrubs the counters and the table and runs the dishwasher through three cycles and mops the entire house.

His therapist says it’s a coping mechanism left over from his childhood. Overcompensating for potentially disappointing someone by trying to make up for it by cleaning harder than he usually does. Isaac just calls it stress cleaning and moves on with his day.

He doesn’t go to sleep that night. He sits on the couch with a cup of coffee (Isaac typically hates coffee, prefers caffeinated tea but this isn’t one of those times) and gulps it down throughout the night with the news on until the sun comes up and Isaac thinks maybe he should get up and be productive.

+++++

And inside,

people pale as death.

+++++

Halloween is on a Thursday. Isaac hasn’t stopped talking about Scott since they met. Boyd is starting to get bored and even Peter has started rolling his eyes when he even hears a word that starts with S, but now it’s been two whole weeks since he met Scott, and a week and a half since he last saw him. And honestly, it’s making Isaac only a tiny bit nervous because he barely knows the guy, but at their last meeting he hadn’t seemed like himself before he left. So Isaac worries and thinks about Scott more than he should in that week and a half, but then Halloween comes around and he forces it out of his head.

It’s warmer than usual for so late in the fall, so Isaac props the door to the shop open and buys three bags of candy because they’re usually busier today, what with so many people out on the streets trick-or-treating.

Erica makes the five of them wear matching costumes, which is how Isaac finds himself wearing robes and a yellow and black tie on a Thursday morning, because Erica is really into Harry Potter right now and had practically gotten on her knees and begged him to take a sorting hat test. He has no idea what a Hufflepuff is but she squealed when it popped up and exclaimed “twins!” so he thinks maybe it’s good.

Boyd is a Ravenclaw, apparently. Kira is a “self-proclaimed” Gryffindor, and Malia seems satisfied with Slytherin, but she’s never read or watched Harry Potter so she doesn’t really know much about the houses or the series anyway.

For the first time in months, the bookstore is filled with kids. He’s reorganized the children's section just for today, and the romance section for the parents.

Isaac used to hate Halloween. He always had to work late in the cemetery on the holiday as a teenager, and there were always kids trying to sneak past the locked gates to vandalize the headstones or have seances on top of graves. Occasionally, he’d catch a particularly involved couple towards the back of the yard and have to kick them out at ass o’clock at night.

But it’s starting to grow on him now that he has friends and the freedom to do as he pleases. But he still stops by the graveyard after he’s closed when he’s on his way to some party Malia is making them all go to just to double check that no one has broken the lock or scaled the fence. It’s one of those habits he can’t seem to break. Like stress cleaning.

Isaac lets his friends hit the dance floor, enjoy themselves in the moment, and he drops himself down at a sticky table and nurses his club soda. It’s not that Isaac hates parties. He loves a good party when he’s in the right mood, but he’s been in a lousy mood since the afternoon when he was watering the plants in the shop windows and he saw Scott walking across the street in scrubs, and he’d considered calling out to stop him, but by the time he got over to the door he was too far away. Isaac thinks, in some stupid way that only he really believes, that he did something wrong. Moved too fast and scared him away like a stray.

Scott’s not a stray dog though. He’s a human being. He’s a full grown adult that can make decisions for himself, and Isaac has got to keep that in mind. Because they’re not together, barely even friends at that, and Isaac can’t blame himself for the decisions other people make.

He can’t keep doing that. Keep thinking everyone else is trying to hurt him, because in the grand scheme of things, Isaac is one person out of seven billion.

Someone sits down next to him, throws back a glass of scotch and verbally winces at the burn. Isaac turns to look at the man, finds that he’s wearing a spiderman suit, and then doesn’t say anything. The guy is young, maybe his age, and he’s got a bright red lipstick stain peeking out underneath the suit, and Isaac laughs to himself.

“Not dancing?” Spiderman asks, nearly yells over the music, and Isaac shakes his head. “Not really in the mood…” he says at a normal tone as the music starts to level out. “What, you don’t like Halloween?” “No I do. Just… shitty day.”

Spiderman nods knowingly, and then leans closer “My- my friend used to say this thing in French. I might be pronouncing it wrong but it’s ‘Après la pluie, la bleu temps’? It means ‘after the rain, good weather’. Pretty much, good things happen even after shitty days. Or something like that, I don’t really know.” Isaac recognizes the idiom, and he grins, partly because Spiderman did pronounce it correctly, and because he’s completely right.

Isaac nods, looks out to the dance floor where Kira is waving him over, and looks back at Spiderman. “Thanks!” He yells, and Spiderman gives him a thumbs up, before getting up and dancing his way over to a girl with bright red hair and a matching Mary-Jane costume. Kira keeps beckoning him over, and Isaac caves and joins his friends.

+++++

I want to stand once again as I did

holding my first love all night long in the doorway.

+++++

Even though Halloween is over, Kira and Malia are still pretty hyped up on energy.

“You’re coming to Galatians with us tonight.” Is what Malia says when Isaac picks up her phone call at roughly seven am. He sighs, throws his arm over his eyes and yawns, “Halloween was two days ago, and you want to go again?” “It’s karaoke night!” Her defense isn’t great, but it’s not the worst.

Isaac groans, “what time?” and he hears her whisper “Yes!” over the line.

It’s Saturday. Isaac doesn’t work Fridays or Saturdays. So he drops his phone on the nightstand once he hangs up and goes back to sleep.

He wakes up two hours later, sweat dripping down his forehead and his breathing labored. Sunlight streams through the window and covers the room, and Isaac drops back down onto his bed, takes three deep breaths to steady himself, and closes his eyes tight.

It’s another nightmare. This time, he’s dead. Dead and cut open and prepped for his own funeral, but his eyes are wide open and he sees and feels everything that his dad is doing. He cries out “Dad please” through sobs but his mouth doesn’t actually open and his body is just still and Victor doesn’t cry. Doesn’t react, just stares at him with dark eyes as he buttons the suit jacket Isaac is wearing, and then he says “you deserved this” and shuts the casket.

The lid closes on him and if Isaac’s heart were beating in his chest it would stop for good. Because it’s pitch black and the walls are so tight his shoulders are shoved in an uncomfortable position and suddenly there's no cushioning underneath him. Just hard plastic. It’s the stupid fucking freezer all over again, and Isaac can’t fucking move. His chest doesn’t rise and he’s frozen.

And then at the same time he’s watching himself be lowered down into the ground right next to his brother, and it’s not a casket anymore it’s the giant white freezer wrapped in chains. His dad stands above the grave, and his friends are there too and they each throw a handful of dirt into the ground before the walk away and-

And Isaac reopens his eyes, swallows the scream in his throat and pushes himself upright. They don’t happen often, dreams that make him wake up screaming, but they’re bad enough that his therapist has started teaching him how to cope with it.

So Isaac makes himself a cup of tea and wraps himself in the throw on the sofa and tries to read, but his eyes keep drifting away from the page and towards the photo of him and his mom and brother on the wall and he has to hold his breath when he meets Camdens gaze. They both share– shared –the same bright blue eyes that their father had. And when he looks at Camden’s face, he sees a younger Victor. But then he looks at his mom, her brown curls and her delicate smile and he sees himself. But both boys have the same crooked nose and splayed freckles and dirty blonde curled hair and if Isaac didn’t know it himself he’d say “ they look like a family ” but they’re not really a family because Isaac barely knows them apart from the fact that they’re both dead.

His tea has gone cold, so he sets it down on the coffee table and goes to take a shower and try to wash away his nightmares.

It doesn’t really work, but that night, as he’s carrying a drunk Scott McCall back to his apartment from the bar through the damp streets of Seattle, he thinks the leftover rainwater might be helping. Scott wont tell him his address, and keeps going “uhhh” whenever Isaac asks him a question so he makes the decision that Scott’s staying with him tonight. And Scott giggles as Isaac helps him up the stairs of first the bookstore, and then the ones leading up to his apartment and he keeps slurring “you live above the bookstore ” and Isaac can’t tell if he’s excited or amazed.

Scott takes the first step, slips his hand in Isaac’s and smiles with sleep-heavy eyes and instead of acting on first instinct (dragging him forward by his jacket and kissing him hard), Isaac pulls him towards the kitchen, and then forces a glass of water into his hands. And he misses the warmth of Scott’s hand in his own, but he shoves his hands in his pockets while he waits for Scott to drink and ignores those thoughts running through his head.

And Scott pukes up everything he’s eaten today into the toilet, and his hair is too short for Isaac to hold back like he does with the girls because Boyd hates vomit, but he does rub the space between Scott’s shoulder blades and helps him sit up, and then sits on the edge of the bathtub himself.

“You’re a good friend…” Scott mutters, eyes closed and head back against the wall. And Isaac swallows the lump in his throat and says “sure…” but his heart isn’t in the word. Scott quirks an eyebrow and tilts his head, and whispers in that honey-rich voice “You don’t believe me?”

Isaac trembles under Scott’s heavy gaze, feels his stomach turn to mush and his heartbeat picks up, and he has to look away from the other man. Focuses on the mirror above the sink and how ugly the frame around it is. Scott sighs from where he’s sitting against the wall, rolls his head.

“Isaac… you’re a great friend.” He whispers, “I like you- I like that about you.” Isaac doesn’t know if it’s a slip, Scott just forgetting a word, but he freezes and watches how Scott smiles to himself.

Scott climbs into the bed like he owns it, sprawls out all the way and almost immediately passes out, and Isaac’s bed isn’t exactly the biggest so he manhandles the comforters out from under him and stretches it over him, and whispers goodnight.

For the second time in a week he doesn’t sleep, listens to the soft snores that drift out from his bedroom and for a second he considers going in there. Of giving in and crawling into bed and sleeping next to Scott like it’s normal, but then the rain hits the window and the news segment he’s watched at least eighty times already reloops the weather report for the week and Isaac brews himself another cup of coffee.

+++++

When we left at dawn, the house

began to fall apart

+++++

When Isaac is thirteen he finds a stray dog living in the cemetery. He’s cleaning the lawn, getting it ready for a service in the afternoon, when a black and white Border Collie peeks its head out from behind a headstone. Isaac doesn’t know why but he reaches his hand out and lets it sniff his fingers, and then it licks his hand and Isaac giggles to himself. Lets himself have a moment of peace surrounded by the dead.

He doesn’t know how long the dog has been here, but he finds an old metal bowl in the garage and fills it with water and spends his allowance on a small bag of dog food that he keeps under his bed.

And he names the dog Cam and he knows his dad would kill him if he found out about this because Victor is allergic. He’d take it as a personal offense. Would drive it out to the woods with a broomstick and then he’d deal with Isaac. But he can’t let the dog just die, so he takes care of Cam the best he can, tries to keep his dad away from the mausoleum that the dog has been sleeping behind. Buys him a collar just in case.

It takes a month for Victor to find out, and Isaac can’t come up with an excuse or an explanation that would appease his father.

Victor beats the shit out of him, bruises his ribs and then locks him in his bedroom.

Cam goes missing. The only thing Isaac finds is the blue collar out on the woods line.

That's the day Isaac swears he’s going to leave, standing behind the hill his mother and brother are buried on with the blue collar in his shaking hands. But he doesn’t let himself cry, forces the tears that well up in his eyes down and bites his cheek to keep his jaw from trembling.

Now, even in adulthood, he doesn’t have a pet. Not even a goldfish. He’s terrified of failing it. Terrified of losing it the same way he lost the dog. Isaac thinks maybe that’s the reason he’s scared of dating. Of falling in love in a way that's different than what he has with Erica or Boyd or Kira or Malia, because they’re all different. He loves them all in different ways, but then he looks down at Scott, snuggling deeper into Isaac’s bed and his heart jumps into his throat and he almost drops the two mugs of coffee he’s got in his hands.

It’s not love. It can’t be, they haven’t known each other long enough for it to be love , but Isaac thinks that he’s halfway there already and it’s terrifying. Because this isn’t Kelly. This isn’t the boy he kissed behind the bleachers that made him realize he was gay. This isn’t just a friend.

Scott McCall is more than just a friend, and Isaac is terrified. He’s scared shitless because he’d drop everything for Scott in a heartbeat, but it doesn’t mean Scott wants him to. Isaac thinks back to last night, back to a drunken “I like you- ” and how Scott hadn’t hesitated to say it, but then again he’d also said “ I like that about you ” and Isaac wants to puke now himself.

But he swallows the bile in his throat and clears it and says as loudly as he can ““I was gonna wake you up with coffee, but man… you look so comfortable.” And Scott’s eyes open fully and he blinks away sleep. He’s still wearing his clothes from last night, socks included, but he looks so damn adorable and Isaac looks away.

Scott sits up, pushes away the weighted comforter and Isaac extends the other mug, which Scott accepts with shaking hands. The one he hasn’t been drinking out of all night. “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…” he doesn’t mention their conversation in the bathroom, or Scott holding his hand in the doorway, and he doesn’t think Scott remembers it.

“Thanks…” he says hoarsely, voice rough with sleep, and he clears his throat and takes a sip. Isaac knows he’s looking around at Isaac’s bedroom, surveying the decorations and the photos. Surveying that photo of Camden on his dresser.

“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 whispers, and then he asks, “Do I snore?” and Isaac has to laugh but he doesn’t say yes. “I uh- I don’t know. Slept on the couch.”

There's a piece of Scott that looks almost disappointed, because his face falls for a fraction of a second and the sadness from two weeks ago returns to his eyes.

Then the inevitable happens, Scott nods towards the gesture and asks “That your brother?” and Isaac holds himself back from getting defensive. Because there was a time where he would tell anyone and everyone about his big brother, Camden Lahey, who saved a bunch of people and got a medal for heroism. But now Isaac just nods softly and says “Yeah, Camden…” And leaves it at that.

Isaac keeps staring at the photo, because in three weeks Camden would’ve been thirty-two and Isaac doesn’t know how to process that. In four years he’ll have had only memories of his brother for longer that he actually had him. He’s starting to forget his voice, holds onto the home videos their mother kept like they’re the most important thing he’ll ever earn and Isaac is angry. Isaac is so angry in the moment because if Scott wasn’t here he would be screaming into his pillow. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. None of this will ever be fucking fair.

But then he catches Scott looking at him out of the corner of his eye and he has to get away, so he stands and turns towards the wall, takes a shuddering breath and blinks away tears. “I gotta… open the bookstore in like an hour. I should shower…” he tries to explain, and Scott puts his coffee down on the nightstand and stands up too. “Oh I can- I can go if you-” he trails off, and Isaac thinks maybe they’re not on the same page.

“What? Do you have a shift?” He worries suddenly, like he’s accidentally kidnapped someone he thought was a friend and is going to make him lose his job, but Scott shakes his head and says “Oh. No I- I just figured…” you didn’t want me . It lingers in the air and Isaac swallows hard. He wants Scott to stay. He wants Scott to stay so badly it hurts him.

“I was gonna say you could… stay? If you wanted? You could help me… open the shop? We could hang out.” He says it like he means it, vulnerably. Nearly begging because he’s willing to get on his knees and beg for Scott to stay and keep him company even if its only for a couple hours.

Scott’s shoulders raise with his breath, and an inkling of a smile creeps on his face. “I don’t have any clean clothes…” and Isaac can’t help the laugh that escapes him. “Just borrow some of mine.”

And Scott argues it a little and Isaac starts to think that it’s because Scott doesn’t want to stay, but then he makes a joke about their height difference that sends them into a laughing fit and Isaac’s worry melts away like ice. “Okay- Okay-” He says breathlessly once they’ve calmed down a little, “Just… I gotta shower. Don’t burn my house down, please.” And Scott smiles like he’s saying no promises and Isaac locks the bathroom door.

And the entire time he showers he’s paranoid. Scared that there's something Scott could find in the apartment that says I like Scott McCall as more than just a friend even though all of that lives only in his head. Scared that they’ll end before they even get a chance to begin.

But Scott’s still there when he gets out. He’s standing in the living room, admiring the photos on the wall and he’s-

He’s wearing Camden’s sweater. The green hoodie with no front pocket. The only piece of clothing he took out of Camden’s closet before he left. And Isaac smiles brighter than he ever has in his life. Brighter than at that picnic with Julia, and brighter than eating ice cream with his brother, and brighter than he did when he found the dog.

He thinks maybe he’ll let Scott keep it. It’s not like Isaac wears it anyway. Could never bring himself to put it on after that day. He wonders if it still smells like Camden’s stupid fifty-dollar cologne and if Scott’s fingertips fall in the same spot that Camden’s did because the sleeves are a little long on both of them, but they’re too short on Isaac for him to feel comfortable in.

Isaac gestures around, “You like it?” As if he’s seeking Scott’s approval. And Scott nods, grins, “Oh! Yeah! Yeah, it’s really- it’s comfortable.” And he doesn’t know how to take that. As a compliment or otherwise.

“That sounds like an insult almost…” “It usually is but… I like it. I like it a lot.”

Scott’s been throwing that word around like it’s money. Like . I like you. I like that about you. I like it.

Isaac doesn’t really understand this feelings thing. Doesn’t know how to process it on this go around, because it’s not as easy. There’s so much about Scott that he doesn’t understand, doesn’t know flat out, yet it’s just as easy to like him as it is to open the bookstore after years of doing it.

Scott picks it up fast, sweeps up the leaves they tracked in last night and straightens up a pile of books that fell at some point before they came back, but they do it silently. Isaac puts on a vinyl record, some soft jazz record that Peter brought in one day and never took home, and he doesn’t play the record player during the day because he can’t read and listen to music at the same time or he loses track of time. Scott stays out of his way for the most part, recognizes the look of someone who has done this too many times.

Once they’re open, Isaac finds the extra stool he and Boyd keep around for when Erica spends her days off at the shop and pulls it back around the desk. He pats the top as he takes his own seat, inviting him to join him and for a split second Scott just stares and Isaac thinks maybe he’s gone too far, but then Scott beams and nearly runs around the counter.

Having Scott close, not even touching but just in the vicinity, feels like coming up for air. Feels like Isaac is breaking through the surface of the water and taking in a deep breath, and finding Scott waiting for him.

They play twenty-one questions, which Scott kinda sucks at. It’s a game about honesty, and somehow Scott dodges every actual answer about where he’s from.

Isaac thinks he’s running. That he’s boarded up his windows and hightailed it out of town. He’s just like Isaac in a sense.

“What’s your favorite word?” Scott’s voice draws him back in. He’s reading a list of questions off of his phone while they wander through the aisles organizing whatever they find.

Isaac knows a lot of words but he doesn’t know one that describes Scott McCall because he thinks that would be his favorite right now. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know Scott as well as he thinks he does. There’s something he hasn’t seen yet and he’s waiting for the floodgates to open. So instead he says, “Petrichor” slowly and walks backwards, stopping just short of a bookshelf.

Scott furrows his brow “what the hell does that mean?” And Isaac laughs lowly and smiles. “The smell of grass after rain. I smelled it a lot growing up so it’s kind of easy to associate it with childhood.”

Childhood , he means, that’s anywhere before the age of eleven . Petrichor was laying on the hill with his mom and skateboarding with Camden and having picnics between the gravestones. It was wandering the cemetery on a foggy afternoon and piecing together life stories and wondering “ did plot 36 and plot 65 know each other ” because they have the same last name and similar markings on the headstones.

“What about you? What’s your favorite word?” Isaac asks, and Scott smiles once again. “Hmm… probably Selenophile. It means ‘someone who loves the moon deeply’.” Isaac doesn’t care that his own grin turns dopey because Isaac is a selenophile apparently .

Scott’s favorite word is who Isaac has been since he was seven and he doesn’t even know it. He almost says “I’m a selenophile-“ but he doesn’t get the chance because a bird hits the paned window with a loud thud and they both jump.

Scott’s rushes to the door, peeling off his jacket. Isaac follows, because he’d follow Scott anywhere, but stands in the doorway. The little bird is already trying to hop away, and Scott is inching ever closer to it with his jacket out in front of him.

“Is it okay?” “I- i don’t know yet…” Scott stutters, takes a step back when the bird turns towards him. “Do you know what you’re doing?” “I’m a vet! Or I- I will be!” He dives forward to catch the bird, who suddenly lifts off the ground and flies away to catch up with the rest of its migration, and Scott lands on the sidewalk with a thud.

A woman walks past, eyes the two boys with separate confused stares, and Isaac smiles and waves like this is normal.

Only one person comes in between the hours of four and five, a woman who browses for twenty minutes before deciding on a copy of Pride and Prejudice printed in the seventies. “Can I… do it?” Scott asks, standing from his stool and smoothing out his pants. Isaac knows he’s been watching, but their register is prehistoric and he hesitates, but Scott tilts his head and Isaac concedes.

He’s already begun inputting the total and points at the processing button, but Scott turns and stares at him and Isaac backs off even further. He intends to watch to make sure Scott’s doing it right but his eyes are really on Scott’s hands and how he presses each button with the same unwavering confidence Isaac didn’t have when he started working here. How he smiles at the woman when he has troubles opening the drawer and then smiles even brighter when he gets it open by doing what Isaac does . How he double checks it’s the right change before handing it over with a have a great day and Isaac melts a little bit .

“You’re a natural…” Isaac takes a chance, slots himself right at Scott’s side as soon as the customer leaves. He gets as close as he can allow himself and Scott’s face turns red and Isaac has to look away and smile to himself.

There’s so many questions clawing at Isaac’s mind. And all of them have to do with Scott. Because the lines of Scott McCall are still dull and missing some colors and Isaac is still trying to fill it all in. He swallows the lump in his throat, looks back at Scott, and asks him directly “Why’d you move to Seattle, Scott?”

And Scott. Scott pales like he’s seen a ghost. Like he doesn’t know how to answer the question. And as fast as they’d fit together, Scott steps away, his brow suddenly furrowed in distress. “Scott?” Isaac asks, tries to get through to him but he reaches down for his jacket, throws it over his shoulder instead of putting it on.

“Uhm… I’m sorry I have to- I have to go. I- I promised my best friend we’d- we’d get dinner together.” Scott sputters through heavy breaths, and his eyes are far away and they never meet Isaac’s. He stumbles out the door faster than Isaac can process.

The little bell rings and the red door shuts.

Isaac watches him go through endless waves of panic and fear. He’d done it. He’d scared Scott away by asking too much too fast and breaking that secret wall of trust they’d started to build. He feels his shoulders fall as his grip on the counter tightens and for a second it creaks like Isaac is going to break the wood, but he lets go and drops onto his stool.

And at first he just stares at the door, choking on his words and trying to keep himself from breaking down. He has to breathe through his teeth just to keep the rise and fall of his chest study. Because Isaac learned a long time ago how to keep himself from crying when someone leaves him. He’s had too many people leave him to not know how to deal with it.

Isaac picks up his phone from the counter without thinking. He dials Erica’s number.

“ Hello? ” It almost sounds like she’s just woken up, voice groggy and he can imagine her hair in disarray.

“He left…” Isaac whispers into the phone, voice wet and Erica asks “ Who? ”

“Scott. I ran into him at Galatians last night and he crashed at the apartment. And then-” Isaac hesitates, but then he spills everything over the counter and the rug and the books. Word-vomits the entire morning back to her. And Erica listens. He thinks maybe she’s going to hang up on him or tell him to get over it, but instead she hums and asks “ Are you okay? ”

It’s a simple yes or no question but Isaac stops in his panicked thoughts, all of them focused on Scott, and has to actually think about it. “I don’t know.”

She asks him if he likes Scott, or if it’s more than a like and Isaac has to take a sudden breath because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know any of this. It’s all too sudden and quick and Isaac’s never been good at taking things slow but he wants to slow down. Because Scott needs that extra push, but Isaac doesn’t want to shove him.

The conversation doesn't get Isaac any further like he wants, but Erica hangs up with a “ call me when you figure it out ” before Isaac can ask her what to do next. He loves her. He really really loves her, but sometimes Isaac hates her.

But Scott comes back. He’s soaked through with rainwater and maybe a little sweaty and teary eyed, but he comes back. He’s the first person to do that. The little bell rings and Isaac hides his face before looking up to greet his new customer, but he pauses because it’s not a new customer.

It’s his new regular.

“Scott? You- where'd you go?” Isaac exhales as he jumps to his feet, but Scott doesn’t respond. Scott stares at him with wide eyes and his hair leaking water down his face and he still looks beautiful but he doesn’t speak. Just breathes heavily and drips rainwater all over the hardwood floor.

Isaac takes four long steps towards him, and he reaches out and grabs Scott’s hand in his. His hands are freezing cold, and Isaac squeezes his fingers, before cupping Scott’s hands in his own to try and warm them up. Scott’s scared of speaking. He’s trying to tell Isaac something but the words won’t come out, so Isaac whispers “I’m not gonna hate you. And I’m not gonna hurt you…” and puts on a mask. Pretends like that’s what he needs to say to ease the pain, because Scott believes whatever he says without fail.

But Scott still falters, and he tries to take a daring step back and Isaac doesn’t think he realizes he’s doing it so he keeps his hold on his hands. And then he reaches around Scott and locks the door, flips the sign back to “Be back in thirty!”, before tugging Scott away and around the shelf.

Scott’s trembling hand stays firmly in his, grabbing onto him like Isaac is the last high piece of dry land in a flooding city. And Scott’s hands, even though they’re freezing and hesitant, are soft. They slot together into Isaac’s like they’re meant to be there and Isaac feels kind of like a kid again, sneaking off behind the bleachers with his crush.

And Isaac gets him to even out his breathing, pulls Scott down onto the itchy blue couch, staying as close as he can with their fingers still entangled together. He motions for Scott to follow his breathing patterns, and Scott does because Isaac thinks he would do whatever Isaac asks of him.

Because Isaac understands now. He gets why Scott is so afraid. So worried to say anything and open himself up. He’s hiding something devastating and just like Isaac, he’s terrified. He’s terrified of this bubble they’ve made for themselves, where nobody exists except for the two of them and the distant silhouettes of their friends.

So Isaac blurts out “My mom died when I was a kid…” and Scott nearly stops breathing, but he evens it out when Isaac keeps talking. “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’s voice breaks a little, because he doesn’t talk about Camden anymore and bringing it all up is going to tear him apart but he keeps going.

“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…”

Scott looks up at him with slightly teary eyes, amplified by the rain.

Isaac swallows hard. Swallows down the truth. “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.”

Scott leans across the couch, touches their shoulder together and brings an instant ease with him that Isaac leans into with a sigh.

Allison. Scott’s devastating secret is named Allison, the same way Isaac’s is named Victor. His ex-girlfriend who died in his arms in a mugging and he thinks it’s his fault. He thinks he got her killed because they stopped at a gas station .

Scott gets more and more frantic as he says it all. Explains that he ran away immediately after the funeral out of fear for what people would think. So Isaac reaches up and brushes wet hair out of Scott’s face, lets his fingertips glide across his skin like a comfort like Scott unconsciously presses closer to.

“Did you pull the trigger?” He whispers. It’s a serious question, but Scott pales again and Isaac thinks he’s going to pull away, but really his grip on Isaac’s hand only gets tighter. He shakes his head, albeit nervously, but it doesn’t make it any less truthful.

“You didn’t pull it. You didn’t kill her. Allison- Allison died in your arms. Died with someone she loved.” and Isaac thinks it’s true, even though he’s never met her and doesn’t know anything about their ill-fated love story. But then Scott pulls away. From his touch and his grasp and Isaac panics when he stands.

Scott’s voice cracks like Isaac’s did, “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.”

And Isaac doesn’t know a whole lot about love. About being in it or falling out of it, but he thinks maybe it’s the same thing that happened with his mom. She died while he was at school. Died when he wasn’t there to watch it happen. “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.” And he thinks that because Isaac understands it.

He says it because Scott responds to relation the same way Isaac responds to punishment. Allison died to spare Scott the pain of watching her die a second time. Julia, Camden, and Victor died alone to punish Isaac. To make him feel every bit of pain they went through before death. And for a selfish split second, Isaac is jealous of Scott.

But then he’s pulled back to reality when Scott finally speaks up again and whispers “Moving on is really scary…” and Isaac doesn’t know if he means moving on from her death, or moving on from her. So he nods in agreement because its a true fucking sentiment, and says “I can help you. We could… learn together?”

Scott’s face lights up before it breaks down, and he drops to the sofa next to Isaac, who wraps his arms around his shoulders and pulls him in. And there’s a small moment before the embrace where Scott looks at him with tear-streaked rosy cheeks and Isaac thinks that maybe, maybe , Scott feels just the same as he does. That there’s unfounded hope in this hug. One that means more than just comfort.

Scott buries his face in Isaac’s shoulder, and Isaac rubs his back as the tears flow and pass and whispers “I got you. You’re okay. It’ll all be okay.” And Scott holds on tighter. Isaac’ apron is soaked through with the rainwater on Scott’s sweater (because Isaac is starting to want it to be Scott’s and not Camdens) but he doesn’t care anymore.

“What’s your number?” He asks when Scott’s finally calmed down enough, “I’ll call your phone. See if your friend can drop it off here for you.”

Scott pulls away and wipes his face, “Uhm… I can call it-“ “No. you’re going upstairs and getting into bed and relaxing. I’ll close early and come up and we can drink tea and you can can change out of these soaked clothes.”

“I can’t take your clothes-“ “There’s pajamas in the second dresser drawer on the left.” Isaac cuts him off, and there must be something in his voice because Scott backs off almost immediately. Isaac hands him his house keys and pushes him off towards the stairs. He watches Scott climb them timidly, before watching him disappear through the admin room.

He shoots off a quick “ Hey my name's Isaac…” text to Scott’s phone, and sends the address of the bookshop with it. Mason, Scott’s friend who’s holding onto it, says he’ll send his boyfriend with the phone to drop it off.

It ends up being Corey, one of Isaac’s regulars from back when he worked Fridays and Saturdays, before he moved into the apartment and he and Boyd made their standing agreement. And Corey scares the shit out of him, because Isaac is staring off into the distance one second and then Corey is standing in front of him the next.

Isaac doesn’t even hear the bell right.

“Jesus! Christ! Corey!” Isaac presses a hand over his heart, takes in a few shocking breaths and grabs onto the counter to steady his balance. “I didn’t even see you!”

Corey laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry. Sometimes people say it’s like I’m invisible…” and Isaac’s smile falls a little bit so Corey corrects “Like, I’m quiet! I walk quietly, so no one hears me.”

Isaac nods and shrugs, “I didn’t even hear the door.” “Well you were a little distracted.” But then Corey digs into his coat pocket. “Here’s Scott’s phone. Mason made sure it was charged. He’s got like a bazillion missed messages on it.”

And Isaac grins, nods as he takes the phone from Corey’s outstretched hand. Corey says “I didn’t even know you guys knew each other…” and it’s more rhetorical than anything but Isaac still responds “We’re friends.”

Scott’s lock screen— behind the bazillion missed messages Corey mentioned —is a photo of him and…

Spiderman. From the Halloween party. Après la pluie, la bleu temps. Of course Stiles, the boy Scott had mentioned as his “best friend since kindergarten”, would be the one to cheer him up on a frankly frustrating day. He guesses that the girl dressed as MJ was Lydia, who Scott had briefly mentioned was Stiles’ on-again-off-again girlfriend.

He smiles wide at that, and Corey matches his mood.

Corey stays for a bit to chat and browse the selection and any new stock. But it’s when Corey leaves with a wave that Isaac locks up, because it’s already creeping towards six-thirty and usually they close at seven, but the last half-hour is always the slowest so he doesn’t think anyone will mind.

Besides, he’s got a boy upstairs in his bed who needs hot tea and a friend and Isaac is prepared to be that person for him.

+++++

And since then the city and since then

the whole world.

+++++

Camden used to smoke. Not often enough to make it a habit or for Isaac to get used to it, but he only ever smoked when he was anxious about something. Or when he was hanging out with older friends who were too cool to let Camden Lahey’s baby brother tag along on their group hang-outs.

Isaac never liked the smell of the nicotine on Camden’s hands after he smoked, but he remembers it well. Remembers the scent that sometimes clung to the seats of Camden’s beat-up junker and how it made him dizzy sometimes. How the ashes from each cigarette flaked and drifted to the ground with every flick of his fingers like snow.

He should’ve been thirty-two today. But he’s eternally nineteen and Isaac, who once thought he’d never be as tall as his brother, is twenty-five and three inches taller than Camden was when he died.

He knows Camden would be making fun of him for his height and how long his limbs are and how goofy his hair cut is, but Isaac smiles at the thought because he’d give anything to listen to him do it.

So Isaac walks to the cemetery. He stops by the offices to check in with the managers and the accountants. They usually don’t reach out directly unless it’s an emergency or for monthly reports, but he likes checking in once in a while to see how they’re doing. And after he waves his goodbyes to the front desk, he takes his bundle of flowers and a single marlboro he borrows from one of the gardeners and walks to the hill. The graveyard has expanded past the hill his family is buried on in the years after their deaths, and Isaac will more often than not stop at the base of the hill and wipe away the other headstones in his mind. He knows the route to their graves by heart now.

“Hey Cam…” he whispers to the headstone, brushing the leaves away from the top of the headstone as he kneels down. There’s not much else for him to say because he can’t think of anything, so Isaac drops to the ground and into the grass.

He pulls at the blades beneath him, rests the bundle of flowers on his mothers grave. She should be fifty-two in february. A palindrome.

Isaac reaches over, traces his finger over the dove outline carved into the stone. “Hey mom.”

Isaac sits with them for longer than he usually does, and when the clouds start to cover the city, he lights the cigarette, lets it burn for a bit before he rubs it out on the base of his brother's stone. Some people might think it’s a little disrespectful, but Isaac knows Camden would get a kick out of it. He’d probably be cackling in his grave if he could.

He leaves a birthday card too. One with a handwritten note and balloons drawn on the front. A past version of Isaac would think that it's a waste because who's going to read it except the groundskeeper, but his therapist said that it's a healthy coping mechanism and that Isaac needs more of those so he leaves the card with a sad smile.

It starts to drizzle on the way home, and Isaac takes the train back towards downtown. He sits next to an older man in a deer-stalker cap who smells like nicotine and reading the newspaper. Isaac looks over his shoulder at the page. He’s reading the obituaries and Isaac has to swallow the lump forming in his throat.

+++++

I want to be filled with longing again

till dark burn marks show on my skin.

+++++

The beginning of their love story starts on the itchy blue couch. They’re sprawled across it eating lunch. They’ve been doing this for weeks. Scott walks to the shop on his lunch break and Isaac closes for his own, and they sit and they talk for whatever remaining time they have left. Isaac has cold leftover chinese food from the night before and Scott’s got a sandwich his roommate packed him and they’re talking about the shop of all places. There’s a blue and white stitched quilt thrown over their legs, big enough to reach both of them.

Isaac has his legs outstretched over the entire couch, feet occasionally bopping one of Scott’s crossed thighs whenever Scott shifts and he’s got a mouth full of rice, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how long it would take to count every book in this building, including his own collection, while Scott talks aimlessly to the room.

“So Pendragon? Like Arthur?” Scott asks out of nowhere, and Isaac lifts his head from where it’s laid against the armrest. It takes him a second to realize they’re still talking about the bookshop. But then he hums “mhm” through his fried rice and chews it quickly. “What about it?”

Scott shrugs and tilts his head, “Well I mean… if you’re the one who oversees everything, would that make you him? Arthur?” Would that make Isaac the king? Never. He slowly lifts himself up from his position on the couch, but the words come out faster than he can think them. “What? No way! I think the king would have to be Peter.” He pulls himself up to a sitting position, and Scott grins.

“Then who are you?”

Isaac matches his smile, jumps up and bounces on the couch cushion, and granted, Isaac might not know a whole lot about Arthur and his knights, but he does know about the white knight. ““Lancelot, of course! Arthur's most trusted!” And he raises an imaginary sword to the sky as Scott picks up his drink and then laughs around his straw.

It’s bright and playful and Isaac falls a little bit more, and then Scott says “Uhm… Lancelot actually stole Arthur’s wife in the original tale.” And Isaac’s illusion melts a slight bit. “What! Oh my god, really? I thought he was just… the white knight!”

Scott laughs again, mouth wide open and eyes wrinkling at the corners, and Isaac has to copy him when he feels his face goes warm. “No. No he was uhm… he was written as a romance character. He was the queen's personal champion. And when he seduced Guinevere… 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.” And at first Scott’s voice is interred deep in the facts. In the story. But then it softens towards the end and his breathing gets heavy and Isaac leans forward on the couch, wants to know every little thing going on in Scott’s mind.

Scott continues, his brown eyes wide and they drift downwards the slightest bit towards Isaac’s mouth, and then they dart back up and dark brown meets bright blue and Isaac feels his own breath hitch. “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 keeps inching forward, bringing his legs up to the cushions and crossing them. The quilt bunches between them.

“How’s it end? Their love story?” He whispers, but what he really wants to ask is How does it begin? Our love story? And Isaac thinks that this is actually how it starts because he’s a breath away from Scott now and he knows it’s the only thing either of them are thinking. Isaac places his own lunch on the floor, and then he drops Scott’s next to his, clears the way for something he thought was impossible three weeks ago.

And Scott tells him. Guinevere and Lancelot die apart in every variant of their story. Sad and alone and never able to face the other in life again.

Isaac realizes, “Scott?”

Scott nods, shortens his breath as it shudders over Isaac’s neck, “Yeah?”

“I don’t uh- I don’t think I want to be like Lancelot after all…” It’s a shaken confession, one that comes from the depths of Isaacs belly, and he’s not entirely sure if Scott understands because all he says is “Yeah?” one more time, but his eyes light up and Isaac knows he’s got it down.

“Yeah.” He nods, and Scott smiles and Isaac surges forward, catches Scott’s lips in his own and kisses him hard. And Scott’s not surprised, he smiles into the kiss and holds onto Isaac’s cheek with a cold hand, but Isaac doesn’t really care because Scott’s face is warm against his.

Isaac brings his hands up around Scott’s head, bunches his hair in between his fingers and pulls Scott closer. And Scott does the same, gets as close as they possibly can before Scott’s falling backwards and his back hits the cushions and Isaac thinks this is what he wants to spend his eternity doing.

+++++

I want to be written again

in the Book of Life;

+++++

Isaac thinks that, in another, better universe, he and Camden get to grow up together. That Camden turns eighteen and doesn’t ship out. Or he does, but he comes back anyway because this version of Cam isn’t a self-sacrificing teenager with big dreams and bigger potential.

And this alternate Camden, the one Isaac keeps locked inside his head because people might think he’s crazy like his father if he ever told someone about him, keeps surviving and keeps coming back after every tour. And the Lahey brothers grow up properly together and when they walk down the street someone will ask “ who are those two? ” And whoever they’re with will say “ That’s the Lahey boys. Closer than best friends them two .”

They still skateboard and they still get ice cream, but this Camden is there for Isaac’s first day of high school with pointless “tips and tricks”. He’s the one Isaac comes out to first instead of Kelly, who loops his arm around his baby brother's shoulders and pulls him close and through shared tears says “I’m proud of you, ya know?” He’s the one who takes photos at Isaac’s high school graduation, and they’ve both saved enough and high tail it out of that house the night after Isaac graduates because there’s no more school or age restrictions to hold them back so they run away together.

And Camden becomes Cam, because he wants to separate from his father as much as he can, and if changing his name is how to do it, then so be it.

Then maybe a few years down the line Cam meets a nice girl while Isaac is still in school and they get really serious, and a few years later Cam is asking Isaac to be his best man because he’s his best friend, and Isaac can’t stop smiling through the whole ceremony.

And maybe Isaac meets Scott at the wedding, a friend of the bride, and they really get on. And a few more years later Isaac is asking Cam the same question that he asked him. And Isaac is the best uncle to Cam’s kids and he takes them skateboarding and to get ice cream and the grow up with not one, but two father-figures in their lives.

But this is all in his head because his Camden died. His Camden has been dead nearly fifteen years now and they didn’t get to run away like they’d talked about and there’s no girl for Cam to settle down with, but Isaac thinks he would’ve met Scott anyway.

So Isaac locks this alternate world away in journals and thoughts and doesn’t tell anyone.

Until, of course, he tells Scott.

They’re lying in bed. Just lying under the covers and staring at each other over the pillows and Isaac must look a little spacey because Scott cocks his head and asks “What are you thinking about?” in that raspy voice that drives Isaac crazy.

Isaac smiles, moves his body closer towards Scott, who wraps his arm around Isaac’s waist. “Sometimes I have this dream… about Camen. One where we grow up together and get to be real brothers. And we run away and he has a family and we’re happy . Somehow I still meet you, even far away from Seattle and California, maybe even on the east coast. It sounds crazy– I sound crazy –but that alternate Cam? That alternate reality where everything is just better?”

Scotts eyes drift, surveying every inch of Isaac’s face, as Isaac continues. “Sometimes I close my eyes, or I close my mind, and that's where I want to be.”

And instead of asking any of the usual questions, Scott smiles, his cheek pressed firm against his pillow, and asks “And I’m in it?” Isaac blushes deep scarlet and looks away, “It’s a new addition to the universe but… yeah you are.”

“Who else knows about this… universe in your head?” Scott asks, and Isaac doesn’t have to think. “Only you.” Scott smiles like an idiot. “Oh? So I’m special then?” Isaac thinks it’s pretty adorable, but he rolls his eyes and says “Oh don’t get a big head.”

But there's more to it now, because yeah. Scott’s pretty special.

“Why’re you telling me this anyway?” Scott asks, and Isaac reaches across the space between them, pushes a fallen lock of hair back behind his ear. He struggles for an answer, because everything he wants to say is a little too out of place for the moment. So instead he settles with, “Because I know you’re not going to go running. Because… I trust you.”

And it’s not a small step, it’s a huge fucking leap.

Scott smiles like it’s a different set of four words, because he knows. He understands. Isaac trusts him, and in return Scott’s going to make it so easy to love him.

+++++

To be written every single day

till the writing hand hurts.

+++++

Isaac takes him to the cemetery in the afternoon. “I want you to meet my mom. And my brother.” He whispers while they’re cooking lunch. Scott’s making grilled cheese on the stove and Isaac comes up behind him, wraps his arms around his waist and puts his head on Scott’s shoulder and says it as they sway together.

And Scott pauses for a second, turns his head to look at Isaac, before leaning up and kissing Isaac softly. “I’d love to.” He whispers, smiles against Isaac’s lips, and nothing has ever felt more right than this moment.

They take the train there, sit glued to each other's side, hand in hand, and the woman across from them smiles at them with the kind of smile you can only get from an old woman. Isaacs never felt this free. Not even when his father died. Because he’s never sat on a train and held his boyfriend's hand in public.

And Scott, being Scott, crouches down at Julia’s grave and brushes a delicate hand over the carving of her name and smiles softly. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lahey.” He whispers, “I’m gonna take care of him. We’re gonna take care of each other.” It’s the first time someone has said it out loud. It’s been an unspoken agreement since he’d met every one of his friends, but Scott is solidifying it in a stone.

Then Scott turns to Camden’s stone. The cigarette and the birthday card are gone, but Isaac watches as Scott grins and reads the stone.

Pvt. Camden Lahey

1987 – 2007

Forevermore

Scott doesn’t say anything to Camden, but Isaac suspects he doesn’t need to. He knows that if Camden were here, he and Scott would be the kind of close that don’t need to talk to understand each other.

So when they eventually leave the cemetery after an hour of sitting in the cold, dew soaked grass, Isaac thinks that maybe this is it. That Scott is it. And that in a couple dozen years, he’ll still be it, no matter how many years have passed.

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