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“So did Derek buy it like this or did he have to work at making it so completely uninviting?” Stiles asked with his usual level of sarcasm, looking around Derek’s apartment and the vast empty feeling it seeped into him. Who would want to live like this?
Isaac snorted, shrugging. “I think this is his idea of decorating. Minimalism.” The werewolf tossed his backpack down on the floor near the kitchen, heading to the refrigerator. “Want something?” he asked, gesturing Stiles into the kitchen.
Stiles walked up behind Isaac and peered around him into the fridge; he had to stand up on his toes to actually see over Isaac’s shoulder. He nodded and accidentally hit his chin on Isaac’s shoulder. Laughing, he backed up. “Sorry man. Yeah, Coke please.”
Isaac nodded and grabbed two Cokes, trying to ignore the weird flopping feeling in his stomach when Stiles stood so closely behind him. He plastered on a smirk and turned, handing Stiles his drink. “Isn’t caffeine like a drug for you or something? You’re not going to go into hyperdrive and start moving at warp speeds, are you?”
“Har har,” Stiles mocked him, popping the tab on his can. Isaac forced his eyes up from Stiles’ fingers to his face. “I’m not a spaceship, I don’t think we have to worry about my FTL drive spinning up. And caffeine is actually considered to be a treatment for ADHD, asshat.”
Isaac nodded dumbly. “Oh.” He followed Stiles’ example and opened his soda, not at all interested in drinking it. He was more interested in watching the way Stiles’ throat bobbed when he drank from his own can. He licked his lips and tried to clear his thoughts. “So you’ll get all drowsy and drunk and try to hit on me?” Isaac asked with a completely straight face.
Stiles actually spit Coke from his mouth, eyes bugged out while he stared at what looked to be Isaac’s lips for a second as he spluttered, “What?”
Isaac rolled his eyes, trying not to read too much into Stiles’ gaze. It was obvious how opposed he seemed to the idea considering he’d just spat soda all over Isaac’s sweater. He pretended to wipe the liquid from his front with a shake of his head. “It was a joke, Stilinski, lighten up.”
Stiles’ eyes fell to Isaac’s chest before they met his eyes again. “No no, right. Uh, sorry about that,” he nodded at Isaac’s chest. “It’s not going to ruin, is it?”
Isaac smirked as he bent to pick up his backpack. “Yep. Owe me a hundred bucks now. Cashmere isn’t cheap.” He could feel rather than see Stiles’ eyes bugging out as he stumbled behind Isaac toward the sofa. Considering how witty Stiles usually was, Isaac was enjoying his ability to keep Stiles guessing.
“Oh my god, is it seriously cashmere, dude? I am so sorry. I-I will… I’ll pay for it, I’m sorry!”
Isaac rolled his eyes. Yes, the sweater was actually cashmere, but he could care less about that. It was replaceable; he never worried himself much with objects that were replaceable. Well… so long as they were his own. “For someone who is known for his sarcasm, you sure are kinda slow on the uptake.” Isaac plopped down on the sofa, dropping his bag between his legs and setting his can down on a coaster on the table. He surveyed Stiles again; the other teen had his mouth set in a small ‘O’ and was staring at Isaac.
“I am not,” Stiles snapped defensively, sitting on the cushion next to Isaac’s. There was no furniture besides the sofa and coffee table, so it did require closer proximity than they might’ve normally had. Of course Stiles looked too distracted by their conversation to care. “I just don’t know you that well - I don’t know what your humor is yet, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Isaac parroted and leaned down to open his bag. “It’s not like I’d ask you to pay for it when you’re the one helping me,” Isaac commented, being a little more truthful.
Stiles looked stricken. “It is ruined, isn’t it? Why did you get such an expensive sweater anyway?”
Isaac shrugged off Stiles’ first question. “Because it’s soft.”
“Oh right, of course, makes total sense,” Stiles responded sarcastically. “Alright. Did you write your essay?” he asked, putting on his ‘tutor’ voice. It wasn’t exactly different than his normal voice, he just sounded more focused when he was helping Isaac study.
Isaac hesitated, not wanting Stiles to read another bit of awful writing. That sort of defeated the purpose of Stiles helping him though - he was supposed to be helping make Isaac a better writer. Slowly he pulled out his binder and unclamped the paper from his three-ring binder. “Don’t judge me,” he said, half-humor and half-defensiveness.
“That’s not what I’m here for,” Stiles said matter-of-factly, his voice warm and silky sounding for some reason. Isaac lifted his head and found that they were staring at each other, a strange, soft expression on Stiles’ face before he lowered his gaze to read Isaac’s essay for English class.
Isaac couldn’t stop staring after Stiles looked away though. He could see the human’s eyes darting over the page as he read Isaac’s slightly untidy scrawl, always working in the same fashion as before. He did a quick speed read-through and then he pulled out his pen and started making notes while he mumbled to himself and then he went over it all with Isaac when he was done. Sometimes Isaac wished that Stiles read the papers alone so he didn’t have to watch and anticipate the worst, but times like these he enjoyed the chance to scrutinize the dip of Stiles’ nose, the hand-tousled hair, the thoughtful expression he held as he scribbled in the margins of Isaac’s paper.
Once he’d finished, Stiles scooted over on the sofa so he was sitting with a thigh pressed against Isaac’s, placing the binder on both of their legs for convenience. The only convenience Isaac noted was the ability to look at Stiles’ eyelashes from only inches away.
“So this was really pretty great, Isaac. You’re getting way better at this. Does it feel any easier to you?”
Isaac’s nose and neck flushed quickly. “Oh, um… thanks, Stiles. It’s not that great… I’m still not certain about the symbolism and-”
Stiles was rolling his eyes and made some weird noise in the back of his throat that was phlegmy and should’ve just been gross, but Isaac was interested nonetheless. It felt like the space where their legs were pressed together was on fire and he would need to move if he didn’t want to go up in flames… but the last thing he wanted was to move away from Stiles so the reward outweighed the risk.
“Bullshit," Stiles cut over him. "When we started you didn’t even know what I was talking about when I asked you about symbolism. Your writing was… well, let’s be honest, it was just crap, and your vocabulary was pretty limited, and-"
Isaac pulled a face. "Is there a point to this?" he asked with mild annoyance.
Stiles apparently realized what he'd been doing and started to backpedal. "Yes! You've improved tenfold! Like fathoms! This was really good!”
Stiles’ eyes were a bit wild and it amused Isaac a little bit that he was worried he’d offended Isaac. He shrugged nonchalantly. “Because of you,” he said quietly but earnestly.
“What? No! I mean, I did help a little bit, but this is all you! I don’t think we even need to do this anymore. I could just look over your papers bef-”
Isaac could see the confusion and wideness of Stiles’ eyes as he leaned in and kissed him. He knew - somewhere in his head he knew it was a stupid thing to do - but he didn’t want to listen to Stiles say that they no longer had to spend time together. That’s not what he wanted. Sure, this had just been studying, but he enjoyed his time with Stiles, even if Stiles just thought he was an egocentric werewolf with too much power to handle properly. And maybe he was. Maybe that’s all that he was, but Stiles made him feel like he was more than that. That he could work at something and be good at it on his own merit, not because he had fangs and claws. It was the first time he’d really ever felt that way about himself since-
Stiles, of course, hadn’t responded to the kiss and Isaac pulled back and sighed. He’d fucked it up, but at least he could say that Stiles hadn’t pushed him away in disgust. That was something. The human was still staring at him with those wide, beautiful brown eyes and Isaac just gazed back, waiting for the inevitable ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line or whatever people said these days to turn someone down.
“You… you kissed me,” Stiles said quietly and now he was touching his lips. Why was he doing that?
“Yeah... sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I like spending time with you and I just…” he trailed off and didn’t say it was his attempt to make this not the end of their time together.
“You do?” he looked over at Isaac, still touching his lips like he was in awe, like he had never been kissed before.
Isaac blinked at him. “Of course. You’re funny. I feel comfortable joking around with you. You make me feel smarter, like I could actually pass English without extra assignments and pity B’s from my teachers because the counselor told them about my old home life.”
“So you - you still want to hang out with me even if we aren’t studying?” Stiles still sounded awed for some reason.
Isaac eyed him curiously, wondering why all Stiles could do was ask questions now. “I would like to. But if I made you uncomfortable then it’s fine. I wanted to-” he took a deep breath then said quickly, “-I wanted to stop you from saying that, because I didn’t want to stop hanging out with you and I wanted to know what it felt like to-to kiss you…” His eyes were cast downward at his English paper still perched between them.
“Isaac…” Stiles said quietly and Isaac looked up, despite his better judgement. Stiles stared at him for a moment and Isaac didn’t know what the hell that gaze said, but then Stiles was kissing him and he wasn’t a rocket scientist - he wasn’t a straight-A student like Stiles, and he wasn’t improving his grades miraculously like Scott - but Isaac still knew what that meant.
His essay wound up on the floor along with their binders as Stiles pressed Isaac’s back down into Derek’s sofa and kissed him relentlessly and Isaac figured that this was totally worth all the extra work he’d been doing for English class.
Maybe next they could work on Chemistry.