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When Isaac hurls a glass at Scott and bellows for him to, “go start your own fucking charity if you want to help everyone so goddamn much,” it isn’t surprising (not to Isaac, anyway). It’s just one more instance of him breaking in exactly the wrong fashion, he reasons later, when he’s sitting on a boulder in the middle of the woods (because how, exactly, do you stick around after launching a glass at someone in their own kitchen?), picking at the rock with his claws and trying to rein in his emotions.
He’s not normal, he knows. Normal people accept help when it’s offered, or else decline in some nonviolent manner. Normal people can take a high-five without bracing for a backhand across the face. Normal people accept weakness as a fact of life instead of a potential cause of death. Normal people don’t suffer from thought-stopping claustrophobia because their father used to lock them in an ice chest.
Normal people don’t respond to feeling out of control by throwing things at those who are trying to help.
Isaac is genuinely surprised that it isn’t pelting down rain or ominously foggy or, like, hailing, because then he could make some wisecrack to an invisible audience about how perfectly the weather matches his mood, and then maybe he’d feel poetic, be able to pretend that his life is just the plot of a horribly depressing movie that actually has a triumphant and empowering ending. Or maybe he’d simply be wet and cold and even more pissed off with himself for running off to the middle of nowhere in such shitty weather.
Except this isn’t the middle of nowhere. Isaac knows these woods; he’s been through them fifteen million times, during training sessions and territory patrols and while hiding from hunters. There’s a stream a couple hundred feet off to the north that he can hear quietly gurgling; it’s clear and cold and the best place to hang out on a blazing summer day. To the west, half a mile away, is a shallow den dug into the side of a hill behind a clump of thorny bushes, just big enough for two terrified teenage werewolves to fold themselves into if they’re clinging to each other and alternating between panting and holding their breath so they won’t be found by men with hunting rifles and wolfsbane bullets.
In the near distance, Scott howls.
Isaac bares his teeth, lets his lips roll back, and glowers at the jagged white scars that his claws have left on the boulder’s surface. They could be scratches from a bear, if you were a park ranger on drugs. He spits, studies the gleam of it in the faint light of the crescent moon, then slips down off the outcropping to land softly on the balls of his feet. A biting chill hangs in the air, making him wish he’d brought a sweatshirt, because, hey, winter comes to Beacon Hills, too.
Scott howls again, closer. Why he’s even looking for Isaac is a mystery. Common sense would dictate you stay away from someone who’s lobbed a glass at your head in the very-recent past. But then again, Stiles hangs out with Derek all the time, despite the fact that he keeps getting shoved into walls and against cars and having his face slammed into steering wheels, so it may be that there’s something in the town’s water making everyone crazy. Crazy enough to chase down people after they throw things at you.
Isaac can still recall the look on his father’s face when he’d jumped up from the dining room table for the last time, plate already in the air, flying towards Isaac. He remembers the bite of that one shard into the flesh under his eye, the expression on his father’s face when the blood ceased to drip and the skin stitched itself back together.
Now Isaac’s the one throwing things. Next thing he knows, he’ll be locking Scott in a concrete vault that even a werewolf’s strength won’t be able to break out of.
He’s retching when Scott finds him, doubled over to lean against a tree, a dinner of cheap pizza and soda mingling with the leaf litter and mulch, throat raw and tears streaming from his eyes, and he doesn’t know if they’re from the bile in his belly or the venom in his brain. All he can hear one second is the choked sounds being torn from his lungs, but the next, there’s a hand loosely curled around the back of his neck, thumb stroking gently across his spine, while Scott murmurs, “Get it out; get it all out,” like he’s some fucking saint who knows everything-
Those are real sobs being torn from Isaac’s throat now, sounds that he despiseshimself for – he’s weak; why is he so weak all the time – while Scott pulls him back and up and away somewhere; Isaac doesn’t know where they’re going, can only stumbles along under an arm that grips his shoulder and won’t let go, trying to piece himself back together because he can see his father’s face in the bark of every tree they pass, and someone hooked a speaker system up somewhere because that’s his voice on repeat, shouting, words that don’t add up right, incomprehensible like he is when Isaac’s really gone and screwed himself over, but somewhere out of that he gets “You are me” which hurts like a sledgehammer to the crotch and makes him furious simultaneously, until he needs to hang onto something, until he’s grabbing hold of whatever he can because he needs to stop-
“Isaac, Isaac, come back to me, man. I know you’re – Isaac.”
Why are his hands and his face so wet?
And then he looks down at where Scott has a hold on his upper arms to pin him against a tree, and there are rivulets of blood that shine black in the moonlight, trickling from his elbows down to his fingers, and when he licks his lips, there’s something more than just salt water coating them. None of it hurts.
“You need to stop,” Scott is telling him, like he isn’t aware of the irony. “Just… just leave yourself alone for five minutes. Can you do that for me?”
He sounds like he’s talking about masturbation and, god, Isaac wants to laugh at that so hard he’s afraid it might actually be a sign that he’s crazy. Instead, he rearranges his facial muscles into a smile, but that actually makes Scott look even more worried.
“You’re coming home with me,” Scott says. “No more of this hiding-out-on-your-own crap. You’re-”
“A danger to myself.” Scott blinks at him, and it’s suddenly very easy to let the smile widen. “And others,” he tacks on thoughtfully. “A raving menace.”
Something suspiciously akin to comprehension flares in the eyes boring into his own, and the grip on his biceps tightens. “You’re not your dad.”
“True. Haven’t got a kid to fuck up yet.”
“No,” bites out Scott, and Isaac suddenly remembers that he’s got a dad too, somewhere way out of the picture, so this has got to be a sensitive subject for him…
The scrapes on Isaac’s arms and face have already healed into scabs. He goes to touch them – just to remember what it’s like to be broken outside as well as in – but Scott rattles him until his skull cracks against the tree trunk and his breath waltzes from his lungs with nary a tip of its hat in farewell.
Scott is growling: “Listen to me – I don’t know what’s going on in your head, or how I can fix it, but you really…” Voice tapering off, he lifts one hand to gesture helplessly. “You gotta… you can’t…”
Isaac lifts an eyebrow. “Can’t what?” Hurt myself permanently anymore? Control my pain – make it manageable, comprehensible? Can’t be normal?
It occurs to him, then, that normal people probably don’t want to have power over their hurts so much as they want to make them go away, period. His esophagus ties itself in a knot.
Something must have changed in his face, because, in the time it takes to blink, Scott’s hands are cradling his jaw, like he’s a newborn baby who doesn’t yet know his dick from his foot, while Scott’s mouth runs, as if Isaac is meant to be paying attention. He’s is having a hard time resenting that. Especially when words like “I’m bringing you home” are burrowing into his ears, making nests there, taking up residence there.
“Okay? You’re coming home with me, and I’m not gonna leave you alone – whatever you need, I swear. Talking, not talking… I don’t care. But you’re the only pack I’ve got, and I know you don’t understand why people care, hate that it makes you feel weak, but you gotta work with me, Isaac, okay? I can’t… you don’t survive this if you just let yourself die – I don’t survive – I need you; you’re my pack – you said you’d stick with me, that you trust me…” Scott’s eyes are searching his, until Isaac can’t help but nod. It’d be like kicking a puppy, otherwise (or throwing something else at it). He feels old and patched-together, but Scott needs him, alright? Being broken…being broken can be temporary. Broken things can be fixed, when they’re needed desperately enough.
Isaac twists his chin out of Scott’s grip and sinks to his knees, doesn’t even glance up at the muttered “What’re you…?” He buries his fingers in the black earth, grabs handfuls of it, watches wood fragments and twigs and leaves and plain old dirt cling to the blood that is still dripping wet from his hands. A worm flexes against him palm, cold and slippery.
“Where’d you leave your bike?” he asks.
***
Scott’s mother is in the middle of her graveyard shift at the hospital, so the emptiness of the house rings back when two teenage werewolves trudge inside for the second time that night. After giving the various pristine surfaces a long look from the front hall, Isaac grips the bottom of his t-shirt and drags it up over his head in one easy pull. “Awesome as your mom is, there are something she doesn’t need to deal with,” he offers by way of explanation, scooting around Scott to drop the blood-crusted thing into the kitchen garbage can. There he pauses to study the streaks of rusty color traveling in multiple directions across his arms (he doesn’t even want to think about what his face looks like). “Can I steal your shower?” When he turns back around, Scott is staring at him. “Or would that break your not-leaving me-alone rule?”
The expression on Scott’s face shifts from deer-in-headlights to kicked-puppy (shit), stalls out there for a second, then collects itself into yeah-getting-rid-of-blood-before-it-gets-everywhere-is-an-excellent-idea while he nods sheepishly. “’Course. Bathroom’s up-”
“-stairs, end of the hall on the right.” Isaac grins as he brushes by him towards the stairs. “This isn’t the first time I’ve cleaned off a crime scene here, you know.”
Frozen in the front hall, Scott doesn’t move, but Isaac can feel the eyes glued to his back as he ascends. He hears a muzzy “…right” exhaled as he hits the landing, and, “I’ll be in my room when you’re done” as he’s pulling a red towel (kudos to Ms. McCall for her taste in colors) from the linen closet.
It takes watching crimson rivers spill off his arms and curl around the shower drain for Isaac to realize that, yeah, he’s the one being weird, and Scott is reacting fairly normally for someone in his situation. ‘His situation’ being one involving things getting thrown at him, then watching the person throwing those things try to claw themselves apart, then having that person skip back to your house and start stripping in your kitchen like that’s something perfectly acceptable to do. And then having them steal your soap to wash the blood off.
Isaac stares at the bottle in his hand and wonders if there’s a point where he has to stop blaming his father for everything and stand up and take responsibility for some of the things that are quite obviously broken within him.
“Isaac?” Scott’s voice filtering through the door startles him so badly he almost slips to crack his skull against the tile. “I’m gonna leave some clothes right outside here – they’ll be small on you, probably, but they’re, uh, they’re clean.”
He’s supposed to respond, Isaac realizes after a hazy moment. He clears his throat. “Thanks, Scott…that’s awesome.”
“No problem.” A floorboard creaks under Scott’s foot as he moves away.
Stripping in the kitchen, Isaac reminds himself, and then has to wonder, What isn’twrong with me?
The water gives no reply except to continue pounding his skin. Sparing a moment to gnaw on the inside of his cheek, Isaac flips off the stream and stands, shivering, in silence for exactly ten seconds, collecting himself, before shoving back the curtain to grab his towel.
When he cracks the door open to grab the clothes Scott left for him, he pauses just long enough to listen for the possibility of Ms. McCall’s return. There are cars rolling by on the street, and Scott’s heartbeat bouncing nervously in his room, but no engines are slowing down as they pass or turning into the driveway. He changes quickly anyway, gratified to discover that the shirt hangs loose on him due to Scott’s wider shoulders, even if the sweatpants were obviously designed for someone three inches shorter. The face in the mirror looks pained when he forces a grin. He turns away.
“Hey.”
Scott jumps, head snapping up from where he had been frantically texting someone. “Hey.” His smile doesn’t look like there’s a gun pressed to his spine, even if it is a little wobbly. “You… feeling better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Isaac leans against the doorframe, watches Scott’s hands set the phone aside, then wrap around one another. He clears his throat. “For everything, really. And… sorry. About…” he gestures to try to convey with limbs what words can’t describe. “The glass, the woods, the…” It hits him that there were no scattered, glimmering shards in sight when he was ripping off his bloody shirt. He cleaned up. Isaac’s throat closes.
For his part, Scott twitches one shoulder in the blandest of shrugs. “Life sucks for all of us sometimes.” His smile softens into something less strained and more real. “You can kick yourself in the nuts for everything in the morning, but you look ready to pass out right now.”
He is tired. Running on stress and adrenaline for hours will do that to you. Isaac pushes himself off the doorframe, moves to back away, go downstairs, crash on the couch, but then Scott is tugging off his shirt and trying to jerk his chin towards the bed at the same time, and the combination smacks Isaac right in the heart, freezing him where he stands.
Scott is eventually forced to yank the garment all the way off, then open his mouth. “You can stay up here, you know, if you don’t mind sharing. The couch sucks.”
“Think I’m gonna claw myself open again if you leave me alone?” It’s instinct to bite back, but he regrets it immediately.
And the emotion must be written all over his face, because Scott doesn’t scowl or go on the offensive, or do anything except twitch one shoulder. “If I’d thought you were gonna hurt yourself, I’d have dragged you to the hospital.” The smile is gone from his face. “I just think you could do with one night of not being alone.”
Back when there were three Betas in Derek’s pack, they’d all sprawl together in corners of that abandoned train station, with even Derek himself sometimes loosening up to join them. Those days left when Boyd and Erica departed, and Peter stepped in to fill the void. Isaac sleeps in his old house, now, though he barely spends any time there otherwise. He’s always here or at Stiles’, adjusting to this different idea of a pack, trying to make himself fit.
He doesn’t remember crossing the room, yet somehow he is sinking down onto the edge of Scott’s bed, one hand resting on the sheets, watching Scott and half-expecting to be told to get out. It’s coming any second now, he knows. The break. It’s coming.
But Scott just drops onto the other side like a sack of bricks, letting loose a soft little grunt as he wriggles under the sheets. It’s…endearing.
And Scott is watching him. “Are you alright?” he asks, and his voice is so soft, so careful, that Isaac feels ashamed for making him wonder.
His voice cracks on “I’m fine,” so he clears his throat and lowers himself down to lie on his side, facing Scott. “But if you steal all the blankets or shove me off, I’m leaving.”
Scott’s grin is surprised, and brighter for it, as he wraps long fingers around Isaac’s arm, dragging him in closer. “Don’t lie so close to the edge, then.”
Isaac kicks him, Scott kicks back, and therein pass a few minutes of tussling wherein Isaac nearly does get shoved off the bed and the sheets are turned into a hopelessly knotted tangle of cloth. It ends with Isaac’s back against Scott’s chest and Scott’s arm around his ribs, purportedly to keep him from continuing the fight, but also because a queen-sized bed really isn’t big enough for two teenage boys to lay side-by-side and fit. But this, this is… comfortable. Even the tickle of Scott’s breath on the back of his neck is more reassuring than anything else.
As if he spontaneously developed telepathic abilities to go with everything else, Scott curls around him a little more and breathes in deep. Isaac expects a final query about his mental health, a reprimand, or some sort of reactionary, invasive, Alpha-style-protective comment. He’s sure that Derek would’ve had one ready long before now.
But Scott isn’t Derek. And he doesn’t say anything at all. He tucks his nose into the crook of Isaac’s neck, sighs, and loosens what feels like every muscle in his body, from the line of his shoulders to the flexing of his heart, which slows to a steady background throbbing in a matter of seconds. Going to sleep. Right. That’s what they were doing. Sleeping.
Isaac wonders when, exactly, Scott inserted himself under his skin, and why he didn’t notice earlier. He lets a little bit of his weight roll back against the living wall behind him, who grunts a little, probably startled, but only noses at his neck instead of shoving back. “Is this alright?” Scott asks, and Isaac hadn’t realized that he was holding his breath until the concern in that question punches all the air from his lungs.
“It’s all good,” he says. “I think I’m gonna be alright.”
The arm around him squeezes once, and Scott’s heart slows down a little more. Another minute, and Isaac’s has settled enough to match its rhythm.