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The first time that Isaac lets his guard down in front of Scott, he’s standing in the animal clinic, and he’s just taken away a dog’s pain.
And he feels like he should say something, instead of just standing there and crying. Feels like he should get it together and explain his little breakdown. But he can’t. No matter how much he wants to, he can’t, because he just took away someone’s pain. And even if it was just a dog, and even if the poor thing is gonna die anyways, he helped. And he can’t even explain why that makes him feel the way that it does, why it weighs on him the way that it does. It just does.
And he knows that he probably looks like a bitch.
Isaac can hear his father in the back of his head, screaming at him. “Fuckin’ faggot, why the fuck are you crying? You think anyone gives a shit about your tears, you worthless little bastard?” He can practically feel his father’s fists slamming into his face, feel him wrenching him down, shoving his face into the carpet or the wall or the counter.
But when Scott speaks, his voice is all soft and gentle, no pressure, no condemnation, “It’s okay. The first time he showed me, I cried, too.”
And all Isaac can do is look up at him in shock. Because no one’s ever, in his entire life, told Isaac it was okay to cry. Not his mom, with her stiff hugs. Not his brother, with his army-focus. Not his dad, with his... everything. Certainly not Derek, who wants nothing but for Isaac to be bigger and stronger and tougher, and crying doesn’t really fall into that plan.
But then there’s Scott, standing right there and telling him that it’s okay. Telling him he cried, too. That he understands. And he’s not judging him. There’s something close to... close to love in Scott’s eyes, and Isaac realizes this is the first time he’s felt safe in years.
So, he smiles. And lets himself cry.
+
Isaac starts hanging out with Scott and Stiles a lot over the summer. At least, as much as he can, considering the constant pack training sessions that Peter and Derek are holding. One night, he crawls through the window to Stiles’ room, covered in bruises. He winces as he lands on his feet.
Stiles barely glances up from the tv, half-waving and muttering “hey” but Scott jumps out of the bed like he’s on fire. “What the fuck, Isaac?” His hand grabs his arm, and Isaac can’t help but wince, because, fuck, it hurts. “You should be healing faster than this. What the Hell happened?”
“Ah, light wolfsbane dosage. Derek says we can’t rely on our healing powers all the time. It’s really nothing. Just looks bad. I’ll be fine by the morning.”
“I’m going to kill Derek.” And for some reason, Scott sounds really, really serious, and that kind of concerns Isaac, because he’s pretty sure that, in a fight, Scott would actually be the one who wound up dead.
And that’s pretty much at the top of the ‘shit Isaac doesn’t want’ list.
“Come on. I’ll get you cleaned up.”
“Hey, what about our game?” Stiles asks, pausing the video game and turning back to look at them, eyes wide.
“Just switch to one player, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Isaac doesn’t think that Stiles likes him. And that bothers him, but he doesn’t know how to change it, because he’s never been anything but nice to the guy. (Well, besides the time he threatened to kill Lydia, but that totally doesn’t count.)
They slip through the bathroom door, and Scott pushes at his shoulders until he’s sitting on the edge of the toilet, and Scott’s tugging his shirt off. “Come on, I can smell blood, just let me see it.”
Honestly, the wound is more gory than actually painful. Located on his chest, it’s about a quarter of an inch deep, maybe five inches wide and seven inches long, and Scott really, really looks like he’s going to make good on that promise of killing Derek.
He cleans it with an alcohol swab and then rummages around for a bandaid, finally locating one big enough and putting it over Isaac’s chest. His hands are a little shaky, and Isaac notices, but doesn’t ask why.
“I really am going to kill Derek.”
“It’s not worth it.”
“He can’t just do this to you.”
Isaac looks up, into Scott’s eyes that are something like half gold, half brown, like they don’t know whether to wolf out or not. And he doesn’t know what to say to that, because what can he say, really? So, he just takes Scott’s fingers, twining them with his in an attempt to stop him from shaking, and rubs his cheek over the back of his best friend’s hand.
It seems to have the desired effect.
+
The first time that they kiss, Stiles is sleeping in the bed with him, his breathing heavy, and they have to be quiet so that they don’t wake him up.
The alpha pack’s been getting closer and closer, more and more threatening, and days when Isaac can sneak off to hang out with them are getting more and more sporadic. He’s been nuzzling against Scott’s side for the better part of the past hour, and they’ve talked about everything from schoolwork to the next full moon to the shitty new Will Ferrell movie.
When Scott bends forward and kisses him, it’s soft and short and doesn’t really last long enough to feel like anything, but it still makes Isaac’s heart start racing like a rabbit on a sugar high.
When he pulls back, Isaac’s pupils are blown wide, his lips parted in shock, and he just sort of lies there and stares at his friend like he can’t actually fathom what just happened.
“I- I’m so sorry.” Scott manages to sputter in a half whisper, trying not to wake Stiles. “I thought... I thought you wanted me to... oh my God, I’m so sorry. I... wow, please don’t hit me.”
Isaac shakes his head, wrapping an arm around Scott’s waist, tugging him closer. “No. No, that’s not it, I’ve just, uh... never been kissed before...”
They stare at eachother for a few seconds before they go back to kissing. A little more frenzied this time, a little more grabby, hands moving to shoulders and backs and asses. They come apart, faces flushed in embarrassment, when Stiles gets out of bed, growling something about horny gay werewolves and stomps downstairs to the couch.
In the blackness of the room, Scott holds Isaac.
Isaac tells him about the time that his dad found a pamphlet in his room on how to come out to your parents. Tells him how his dad beat him senseless and then locked him in the freezer for a whole day, bleeding.
He cries again.
Scott kisses every single tear.
+
He is going to die.
Isaac has actually accepted the fact that he is going to die, but he can’t accept the fact that he’s not going to get to say goodbye to Scott before he goes.
The alphas attacked the train station. Isaac remembers a female with long dark hair and grey eyes and a cruel, cruel smirk sauntering towards him. He vaguely remembers her saying something about how he looked more like a little lamb than a wolf. He thinks he bared his fangs at her and made a comment about how he could show her how wolfy he was if she wanted.
Anything that might have happened after that is gone.
And he’s bleeding. His entire body, at least it feels like it, is bleeding, and the world keeps tilting at weird angles, and he knows he’s going to die.
He knows because Derek is actually crying- Derek is actually crying- and if that isn’t a sure fucking sign that he’s about to make his final exit, he doesn’t know what is.
And the alpha keeps whispering things like “just hold on, Isaac” and “it’s okay, Deaton is gonna be here soon, he’s going to fix this.” And at one point, in this broken fucking whisper, Derek actually says to him, “I’m so sorry I did this to you, I’m so sorry...”
And Isaac really wants to tell him how it’s not his fault. How he’s happy to die to protect his alpha. How, because of Derek, Isaac has had the most amazing few months of his life, and he can’t really complain that it’s all going to come to an end.
But somehow all that comes out is “Scott” over and over again like a broken record.
He hears Peter’s voice, faint and distant, telling someone to call Scott. Thinks he hears the sound of Erica’s heels clicking against the cement. But everything is getting fuzzy now. The world isn’t so much tilting anymore as it is spiraling. It’s all going down, like he’s falling into a drain, and unfortunately, Isaac can’t stop himself from getting sucked in.
His last conscious thought is who’s gonna tell his boyfriend that he’s gone.
Except that not actually his last conscious thought, because he wakes up to the smell of antiseptics and the sound of dogs barking, and he can feel someone threading their fingers through his hair. He tries to move his head, but someone whispers, “shh, shh, don’t move, it’s okay” and he lies perfectly still.
“Scott?”
“Yeah, baby, I’ve got you. It’s all okay, I’m right here, okay? You’re fine.”
Except Scott’s voice doesn’t sound like everything’s fine, he sounds like he’s been crying for a while, and Isaac winces, tries to move again. Scott stops him by putting his hands on his shoulders.
“How bad is it?”
There’s a pause, like Scott’s weighing what he wants to say, before he mutters, “Bad. But nothing that can’t be fixed. You’re going to be okay. You just have to give it time.”
He realizes that Scott’s been pulling the pain from his body, that that’s the reason he doesn’t feel like he’s split into several hundred pieces anymore. He doesn’t ask, though, because he doesn’t want Scott to know that he knows.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Isaac.”
Lips brush against his ear. He falls back into unconsciousness.
+
Scott agrees to join Derek’s pack- for real this time- once Isaac is well enough to leave the vet. The pack of seven, with help from Stiles, Lydia, and the Argents, manage to get the alphas to leave town without any casualties.
Immediately after, Scott announces that this bullshit about sleeping in a train station has got to end. He goes to his mom, tells her that Derek’s been forcing poor, homeless teenagers to sleep on concrete. She lectures the alpha for about three hours before welcoming the entire pack into their home, on the condition that everyone get a job and help out around the house.
It’s cramped. Excessively so. Even with Jackson living at his place- technically, though he spends eighty five percent of his non-school hours at the McCall house- there’s not enough room for everyone. Derek, Boyd, Isaac, and Scott end up crammed into Scott’s room. Erica gets the guest room all to herself, because she’s a ‘young lady,’ to the chagrin of the others. Peter ends up sleeping in Melissa’s room, something that Scott is not at all comfortable with, though he tries his hardest to bite his tongue, for the sake of peace.
The cramped living space doesn’t give room for much privacy, so their first time actually takes place at Stiles’ house.
Which is weirdly fitting, all things considered.
Stiles is out on a date- though he wouldn’t say who with, when pressed, said it was ‘too soon to talk about’- and he gave them permission to use his room for ‘whatever they needed’ while he was out.
Scott is gentle, doesn’t go too fast. It hurts a little, the way that Isaac knew it would hurt, but not as much as he thought it would. It’s clumsy, and strange, and new, but it’s also Scott, so it’s beautiful.
They lie together in the aftermath, holding each other a little too tight, breathing hard and heavy.
Isaac wonders if all werewolves can take away pain as well as Scott has taken away his.
But, actually, he’s pretty sure it’s just a Scott thing.