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Five years after shit really kicked off, Scott sees Isaac filling the tank of his '73 El Camino at the same gas station Scott had patronized countless times as a teenager. With Stiles, hitting it up for late night snacks, or later, alone, buying cigarettes during the short-lived, slightly cagey phase Scott had gone through right after high school. The place was perpetually five minutes from closing, the owner always glaring as if personally affronted by the idea of opening his cash drawer.
It's unexpected, to say the least, and at first Scott speeds by without slowing. It takes about three seconds for it to register, and he stops at the next red light, idling, Harley rumbling between his thighs.
He turns the bike around.
“Hey,” he says after pulling into the parking lot, stopping not in front of the pumps but on the opposite side of Isaac's car. Isaac stares a moment, wetting his bottom lip with his tongue. He looks different, older, but his curls, his oceanic eyes are the same. “Oh!” Scott remembers to remove his helmet and Isaac's eyes go wide, then wider.
“Scott,” he says, flatly, and there's a pregnant pause. Scott's about to speak again when Isaac adds, “Hi.”
“How's it going?” Scott asks. Isaac licks at his lip again and shrugs.
He asks, “Are you back in town?” without really answering Scott's forced-casual question.
Scott shakes his head. “Spring break, plus it's Elan's birthday this weekend.”
“Oh.” Isaac nods. “Cool, man.”
Scott regrets turning around a little.
It's not that he has anything against Isaac—he doesn't. In fact, the opposite is closer to true. He'd always liked Isaac and he still does. Only they haven't seen each other in years; Scott's pretty sure Isaac had left town after... after. So he's either moved back to Beacon Hills or he's visiting for his own reasons. Either way, he doesn't offer the information freely, and Scott doesn't really want to ask for it.
So it's awkward, to say the least. The last time they'd spoken, Scott remembers (though, if he's being honest, he's repressed a lot of memories from that era of his life, which probably isn't the healthiest method of coping in the world, but whatever, that's why he's never asked a professional) there had been a lot unresolved between them. Spikes of guilt and blame, a little resentment, maybe, probably, separating them. A wall too high to scale without help. Isaac shifts his weight back and forth between his feet and Scott nods at the classic car.
“Nice,” he says, and Isaac brightens infinitesimally. He's never been a particularly sunny guy, but Scott had always thought he looked nice with a smile on, and the same holds true today.
“Thanks. New.” Isaac lifts one shoulder, another impersonation of a shrug. “—ish.”
Scott assesses him. Or actually, no. He sizes him up. Isaac does the same to Scott and it's okay, like a mutual understanding. Isaac has filled out in the chest and shoulders some and his hair is darker, or maybe it was never actually pale and Scott's remembering it wrong. Otherwise, he looks basically the same. Half slouched and slightly awkward human, half fearsome, graceful animal. And Scott knows that he's changed in subtle ways that Isaac's taking note of. His biceps are larger. He's got more tattoos, two of which are visible on his bare forearms. His hair is shorter and he's a little pallid from having just spent a long winter in the northeast.
He'd have liked to get more color this week, only his mother had him and Stiles both pretty well locked down with party planning and related errands. He'd actually been on his way back to the party supply store to pick up two dozen specially ordered green balloons, green being a strangely rare balloon color, (and he swears to god if they're already inflated he's calling Stiles, because he's not going to ride through downtown Beacon Hills with twenty-four balloons tied to the back of his bike no matter how much he loves his little brother).
Anyway, it's been pretty cold and cloudy, so not ideal outdoor weather.
“What have you been up to?” Scott asks, now he's decided that this is alright, they can have a conversation, no big deal. Isaac isn't going to snipe and Scott isn't going to jump on his bike and ride and keep riding until he reaches the opposite coast. At least, not until next week.
“Not much,” Isaac says, after contemplating a bit. “Taking classes at the community college. Working part time, you know. Pretty much surviving.”
“Better than the alternative.” The words are out before Scott considers their implications, and he's embarrassed but he doesn't let it show. He's cultivated a pretty good poker face since moving to a town where no one knows his secrets, where the closest thing to a werewolf is probably the white husky that serves as his college's mascot, the most danger he's been in over the past three and a half years being that one time he got alcohol poisoning without the bonus of actually getting drunk. “Sorry,” he says.
“For what?” Isaac stares at him levelly. Scott had sort of forgotten how intimidating the guy could be when he tried, although he's not entirely sure that's what Isaac is doing now. Scott feels warm, suddenly, in just his t-shirt and jeans.
“I didn't mean,” he mumbles, but Isaac cuts him off.
“Hey,” Isaac says, clears his throat. “Scott?”
Scott looks up. He doesn't exactly remember looking down. “Yeah?”
“What are you doing tonight?”
--
It's not supposed to be a date. At least, Scott's pretty sure that hadn't been Isaac's intention, and he knows it's not what he'd had in mind when he'd accepted the invite.
Still, Isaac's mouth is on the skin right below Scott's ear, his long fingers pushed into Scott's thick hair, curling and tugging hard and—it's a date, okay? It's a date, because otherwise it's just a moment of heat in Isaac's car and they can't just do that, not with so much still to talk about.
When the impromptu make out session ends (and it goes on awhile, too long, maybe, but it's been a long time, and Scott is weirdly intrigued by the way Isaac's mouth tastes, like beer and salt and something unidentifiable and sweet, a trace of tobacco, like maybe he smokes now and then, and the way Isaac is breathing, heavy and warm against his skin is really nice) Isaac asks Scott if he'll call him tomorrow.
--
Stiles sleeps in Scott's room, just like when they were kids, even though he's had his own bedroom at the end of the hall for years.
“I went out with Isaac Lahey,” Scott blurts out sometime around two in the morning. He's glad the room is dark and Stiles doesn't have preternatural senses because he can actually feel the color rising in his cheeks. Stiles pushes out a loud breath and rolls onto his back, Scott's old mattress creaking in response to the shift.
“So?” he asks.
“I kissed him," Scott says. “He kissed me. There was kissing.”
“Man,” Stiles says quietly, after almost a full minute. Scott knows because he counts the seconds.
“Yeah,” he replies.
“Any good?”
Scott is a little flummoxed because he hadn't been expecting that. He doesn't know what he'd been expecting, exactly, just. Something emphatically not that. “Yeah,” he says again, quietly.
“Man,” Stiles sighs.
--
“I want more cake,” Elan says, slurred and sleepy, little fist scrubbing his eye.
“Nope,” Scott says.
“Let him have one more piece,” Stiles says.
Elan says, “Caaaaake!” in a monster voice and bites Scott's knee.
He's three now, officially, and the party has reached the point where the few kids left are all sleeping in their parents' arms, the grown-ups (which trenchantly excludes Stiles and Scott, despite their both being of legal drinking age) huddled in the kitchen, socializing in low voices. Elan climbs onto the couch between his brothers and sighs like he's got the weight of the world on his tiny shoulders.
Elan has dark hair and eyes, Scott's nose, and he can perfectly emulate the way the sheriff puts his hand on his forehead and closes his eyes, shaking his head at Scott or Stiles or, more often, Scott and Stiles. He's whip-smart like Melissa and a smart-ass little punk brat like Stiles and he's Scott's favorite thing in the whole wide world.
He pulls him onto his lap now and pins his arms to his sides while Stiles tickles his ribs and Elan screams and laughs and kicks them both, almost getting Stiles right in the nuts, until Scott liberates him.
“There were a lot more kids here than I remember having at my birthday parties,” Stiles says, once Elan has launched himself from the couch, electing to plead his case for cake to his mother. Scott's mother. “I feel kind of ripped-off, don't you? Scott?”
“Hm? What?”
“You're spacing, dude.”
Scott shrugs. “Not really.” Elan is yelling again in the kitchen and it's his tired, aggro yell.
“Are you gonna see him again?”
Scott almost asks, “Who?” just to be obnoxious. Instead he stretches, covers his mouth with his hand and yawns, nodding.
--
He'd said he would call, so he does, after Elan is asleep and Stiles has left to get the first leg of his journey back to Boston underway, Melissa and the sheriff watching TV in the living room.
Scott locks his door and sits on the edge of his bed. The other line rings for so long that he's certain Issac's voice mail message is about to play when there's a weird sort of beep and Isaac's voice. “Scott.”
“Yeah. Hi.”
“Hey. Sorry, I was on the other line.”
“No problem.” Scott wets his lips with his tongue. “So, um—”
“How was the party?” Isaac asks.
“My ears hurt,” Scott replies, relieved that Isaac's taken the task of starting a conversation out of his hands. Isaac laughs, and there's this weird pain in Scott's chest, suddenly, right in the middle. “I'm serious,” he says instead of freaking the fuck out. “Have you ever spent multiple hours in a house full of screaming preschoolers with sugar highs while too hungover and tired to effectively dampen your werewolf senses?”
“Hm. Can't say I have.”
“Well, I resent you laughing at my ear pain.”
“Shit, McCall,” Isaac says with another low laugh, and there's a pause. “About last night—” he starts, and it's Scott's turn to cut him off.
“It's cool, man.”
“I... wasn't going to apologize?” There's an edge to the words that makes the pain in Scott's chest spread out, because it sounds like the old Isaac. The Isaac before.
“Oh,” Scott says, mildly guilty.
“I was just going to say...” There's another pause, long enough for Scott to wonder if the line has gone dead. Then, “I've had a thing for you since our junior year.”
“I know," Scott says. "I mean, I knew.”
“You did?”
“Not really.” Scott pulls his legs up onto the bed, leaning back against his old, flat pillows. “Shit was pretty messed up back then. I wouldn't think you had time to crush on anyone.” Scott bites his bottom lip, hard. This feels a lot like high school, he thinks, looking around at his old posters, the window behind him the same window he'd climbed in and out of countless times, that Stiles had broken a week after he and his dad moved in and he and Scott had gotten in a pretty bad fight by their standards over something Scott can't even remember now. Stiles had thrown a lacrosse ball that Scott probably should have just taken to the chest instead of dodging because they'd had to pay for the window themselves...
He asks, “Why didn't you say anything?”
“I guess because you didn't know.”
Scott feels like apologizing again but he doesn't. High school was a long time ago, and with everything that had happened, he's not going to hold himself accountable for not noticing Isaac's more than friends feelings.
The past is the past. Nothing changes that, certainly not feeling bad, right? “I thought about trying to get in touch with you a few times,” Isaac says. “It was easier when I just saw you.”
“Yeah.” He's a real Shakespeare tonight, wow. He blames the hangover and Elan and the fact that he hasn't been the object of anyone's desire for a while now (at least not that he's been aware of). The whole idea is making him a little nervous and tetchy. He makes a note for the next time he sees Isaac to be as confidant and charming as he'd been last night before he'd decided it was a date and a little bit after, which he supposes means he wants to see Isaac again, which he hadn't really been sure about when he'd said, “yeah,” to Stiles earlier. And it's not because he wants to talk about those things he hasn't spoken to anyone about in so, so long. Really.
He just wants to make out more.
“How long are you in town?” Isaac asks once he realizes Scott isn't going to elaborate.
“About a week,” he says. His spring break was scheduled a week after Stiles's; while his best friend is on his way back to Boston, Scott doesn't have to be in Connecticut until next Monday.
“So,” Isaac says.
“So.”
--
It's just for the week. Neither of them are looking for anything in particular, and it feels natural, somehow, that they should get together. They're both single and virile and Scott reasons that he sort of owes himself this for not hooking up with Isaac five years ago, so yeah. It is what it is.
The first time they actually fuck is on a humid Wednesday. It's a bit clumsy and desperate, but hot, both figuratively and literally. Isaac doesn't run the A/C in his studio apartment, ever, to save money. So they're naked and sweat-slick, humping each other on top of Isaac's sheets and Scott comes about two minutes after Isaac wraps his hand around his dick and Isaac moans, thrusting against the dip under Scott's hipbone, skin slipping against skin until he lets go all over Scott's chest and his own and they just kind of collapse next to each other, panting, at the precise moment it starts to rain outside.
Not a light rain, but a deluge. There's a streetlamp across the road from Isaac's window, casting shadows around the room, and the water hitting the glass looks like it's dripping off of Isaac's skin.
Once they've caught their breath and cleaned up (well enough for now, anyway, with Isaac's t-shirt and a handful of Kleenex from the nightstand) Isaac starts to laugh. Scott can hardly believe it, but apparently it's something Isaac does easily, and it's a seriously incredible sound. “That is not how I imagined sex with you would be,” he says.
Scott flushes. More so. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Neither,” Isaac says, rolling onto his side so that he's facing Scott again. His lips are all wet and shiny, and god, Scott is still pretty horny. “The way you were back then,” Isaac continues. “You just seemed like the type who would set up candles, or at least have the perfect song queued up.”
“Um... this isn't my apartment?”
“Still. Different. Not bad, though.”
Scott swats Isaac's shoulder, playful, then lifts his own in a vague shrug.
“I haven't had sex in ten months,” he confesses. Isaac blinks. He's still smiling, but it's softer now.
“Eleven for me,” he says. Then he's leaning in, closing the distance between them and cupping Scott's cheek, kissing him, and Scott's dick twitches, interested.
So they start again, and this time it's slow and sweet. Scott pays homage to every inch of Isaac's skin, kneeling between his legs (really nice legs, miles of them), arms bracing him up and head dipping down to lick the side of Isaac's neck, from clavicle to strong, square jaw. He moves down to suck on a nipple, then kiss the underside of Isaac's ribcage, tracing the lines of his hips with the tip of his tongue.
When he comes up for Isaac's mouth, finding it and kissing it open, sucking faintly on Isaac's tongue, their cocks bump against each other and Scott pushes down with his groin, just moving over him, and Isaac jerks so hard Scott thinks he's coming again already or he's about to throw Scott off. A second later it sinks in that Isaac is simply falling apart underneath him. Scott really likes that.
“Jesus,” Isaac exhales, fists kind of clenching and releasing at his sides, like he wants to touch Scott or touch himself but he's too paralyzed by pleasure, or just unwilling to move, hovering in the moment.
During Scott's second year of college, there had been a guy. He played on the college lacrosse team with Scott and had (and Scott had never told anyone this, not even Stiles when he'd pressed for “deets” over the phone) reminded Scott superficially of Derek Hale, with his ridiculous body and hair blacker than Scott's own. He propositioned Scott in the locker room after a particularly vigorous match, not fucking around, telling Scott exactly what he wanted and Scott had felt hot under his sharp gaze. Hot enough to meet him off-campus that night, and then several more nights over the next handful of months. They did it the same every time, Scott fucking him from behind, hands around hips like handlebars and thighs smacking, silent save for the occasional grunt and Scott would come into a shallow reservoir of rubber seconds after his partner spilled onto his New England Patriots bedspread.
So he's not new to this. He is, however, new to Isaac, who is nothing like that other guy. Isaac who spreads himself out on his back in a way that's simple and pretty, his face the only part of him that's still fierce, his eyes focused on Scott intently, lips taunting, saying, “I dare you,” without actually speaking.
Scott takes the dare, and the initiative, going for the nightstand drawer and the lube he knows will be there because of course Isaac had planned on this. Why else were they going out? Isaac isn't virgin tight (and Scott will ignore the little twinge of robbed propriety he feels because it's inappropriate and ridiculous) but Scott still takes his time opening him up, stretching him, finding his prostate without much effort (thank you, Human Anatomy and Physiology) and massaging while Isaac groans throatily, arching his perfect pale spine. He's eventually reduced to whispered curses, everything from, “Oh, goddamn,” to, “Motherfucking—ah—Scott, fuck, just, fuck you you motherfucking asshole!”
“Shut up,” Scott says, laughing a little, but it's breathless. He's hard again, so hard, leaking onto his thigh.
“I want to come on your gorgeous cock, McCall.”
Jesus Christ.
“Come on my fingers first,” Scott breathes out, and like the motherfucking asshole he is, he adds more lube and a third digit to the mix.
“Should've known you'd be a tease—”
Scott thinks he sees Isaac's eyes flash gold in the dark and it occurs to him that he's never had sex with a werewolf before. Something passes over and through him and he alternates between short, quick thrusts and gentle strokes with his fingers until Isaac goes quiet and looks like he's about to cry and, oh, god, it's beautiful. Scott finally sheaths his dick and pushes into Isaac all at once, and Isaac's long legs wrap around his waist and he's fucking Scott as much as Scott is fucking him, and Scott keeps trying to kiss his mouth but Isaac is more interested in panting and his hands are on Scott's back, holding him so tight Scott can barely pull out—
“Fuck,” Isaac sobs. Scott kisses his temple, feels him convulsing, the spreading wetness between their stomachs. He's coming, too. Dropping his forehead onto Isaac's shoulder, thrusting forward as hard as he can. Staying as long as he can.
“You're the best fuck I ever had,” Isaac says some time later, when they can talk again, and kisses him.
It's not until he's home, hours later, that Scott thinks about this and frowns.
--
Scott doesn't hear from Isaac at all on Thursday. He's not sure who's supposed to be calling who, so he doesn't call, and wonders if Isaac is doing the same. On Friday he hangs out with Elan while his mom and the sheriff are both at work, Elan's usual babysitter enjoying a well deserved day off.
Elan is playing with Legos. Or, Duplos, as he'd corrected Scott twice already. Whatever, though, they're fucking big Legos. Elan isn't old enough to build anything particularly detailed (not that the handful of basic shapes and primary colored blocks offer many options in the way of creative expression) but he manages a rough sketch of a structure and Scott is suitably impressed. He remembers mostly throwing the blocks around the living room back when they'd belonged to him.
“Where's Stiles?” Elan asks.
“I told you already,” Scott says, then repeats, “he's back at school.”
“Where does he go to school?”
“You know where.”
“Oh.” Elan focuses on the blocks for a minute, and Scott watches him, but he's thinking about Isaac. He decides he's going to call him after he makes lunch, which is precisely when his phone lights up, Isaac's name flashing on the screen. He lets it ring twice before answering.
“Hey,” he says. He hopes he sounds cooler than he feels.
“I'm down the street,” Isaac says. “Is it cool if I swing by?”
“Sure,” Scott answers quickly, and Isaac hangs up on him. He nods at Elan. “My friend is coming over. Wait for him on the porch with me?” Elan nods, solemn, and dutifully takes Scott's hand.
It's a nicer day than it had been the last time Scott saw Isaac, less humid, more sunny. They only have to wait a few minutes for Isaac, who is walking when he appears, loping down the sidewalk toward the McCall-Stilinski house. Scott waves, just in case Isaac doesn't recognize the house in the daylight.
“Hey,” Scott nods, and Isaac nods back, grinning and climbing the stairs up to the porch, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his threadbare, dark blue hoodie.
“We're playing Wegos,” Elan says, hugging the back of Scott's leg, lifting his feet off the ground and octopus-ing him, sitting on his foot. Scott blinks at him, somewhat bewildered because Elan has never used the term “Wegos” before. Scott can only assume he's trying to be cute in front of Isaac. He rolls his eyes hugely.
“Wanna play?” Scott asks Isaac. Isaac's lips twitch into a wry smirk that's achingly reminiscent of the past.
“Sure,” he says. “I love Wegos.”
“After you,” Scott says, opening the door and waving Isaac inside. “Drink?” Isaac shakes his head.
“M'cool, thanks.”
Scott grabs Elan a Capri Sun from the fridge, then joins he and Isaac in the living room. Isaac is sitting with his back against the couch, long legs tucked up in front of him. Scott sits cross-legged on Elan's other side, attempting to get the straw into the foil pouch without squirting juice all over his white t-shirt while Elan does a ten minute presentation, explaining the names of the various shapes and their colors to Isaac. Isaac listens, attentive and patient, only glancing over at Scott and winking once.
“I never understood this piece,” Isaac says, picking up an oddly shaped block with a center square for other blocks to lock onto, and two totally useless sloping sides.
“I think it's for building really ineffectual battlements,” Scott says. Isaac turns the block upside-down.
“Or the clerestory window frames of a Romanesque church.”
Scott peers at Isaac through his eyelashes. “Stay for lunch?”
“What's on the menu?”
“Peanut butter and dinosaur blood.”
Isaac looks charmed. “My favorite.”
Scott makes sure that Elan is suitably distracted, face screwed up as he tries to find a practical use for Isaac's misfit piece, then stands, offering Isaac a hand up. He follows Scott into the kitchen and leans against the counter, crossing his arms as Scott assembles some wheat bread, peanut butter and black-raspberry jelly on the counter.
“God,” Isaac says, nodding toward the living room. “He's fucking adorable, isn't he?”
“Watch me try to feed him then tell me you feel the same way.”
Isaac snorts. “The Great Scott McCall can save the world but he can't make a three-year-old eat a peanut butter and jelly, which, shit.” Scott glances over his shoulder, sees that Isaac is reading the ingredients list on the back of the plastic peanut butter jar. “Man, there's a lot of sugar in this.”
Scott starts to make a sarcastic comment about the relative health benefits of sugarless peanut butter verses a satisfied kid as opposed to a fussy monster, but he finds himself a bit stuck on, “the Great Scott McCall can save the world.”
“The Great Scott McCall,” he repeats dubiously, turning to face Isaac. He sticks the dull knife tip in his mouth, licks off a bit of peanut butter (it is sweet, damn) and raises his eyebrows while he waits for a response. Isaac stares for several seconds, an unidentifiable look on his face, then shrugs, like he does.
“You know,” is all he says. But Scott doesn't really.
“Careful,” he says, waving the butter knife in a vague threat. “Or I won't cut your crusts off.”
They carry the sandwiches back into the living room and clear some space on the coffee table, putting Elan between them. Scott scrolls through the DVR until he finds an ancient episode of Adventure Time they've watched about ten times this week. For several minutes they are all three quiet.
The main characters of the show each have an object of personal significance stolen from them and the only way to get them back is by breaking down a door with honest songs about their feelings. It's a pretty good episode. Scott has the songs memorized and Elan is enchanted. Scott sneaks glances at Isaac now and then, finds him watching the cartoon with what appears to be genuine interest, only every once in a while he reaches over to nudge Elan's paper plate, and every time he does Elan comes back from the Land of Ooo and takes a bite.
He eats more than Scott can ever get him to, and before the episode is over, he climbs into Scott's lap and balls up the way he does when he's too tired to be cranky and horrible. Scott wraps his arms around him and keeps his eyes on the TV until the episode ends. No one is angry with each other anymore and everyone's happily reunited with their favorite things.
If only it were really so simple.
When the DVR menu screen returns, Isaac says, “We should probably talk.”
Scott nods, gently depositing Elan on the couch, collecting the crumb-laden paper plates and heading back into the kitchen. “I just thought you should know,” Isaac starts, and Scott thinks, this is it. Isaac's going to tell him that it's been fun, that he'll remember this week fondly but that he doesn't think they should keep in touch, and why should they?
They'll be on opposite sides of the country, and Scott is broke, essentially, when he's at school, and Isaac lives in a stifling studio apartment in downtown Beacon Hills with a broken refrigerator he keeps his books in, so visits would be illogical, and impossible, and it's fine, it really is. He almost wants to tell Isaac to stop before he starts, to say all those things before the other boy gets to, because he thinks he's hurting Scott, but he isn't. He isn't. Scott's totally been expecting this.
“I'm just,” Isaac starts again. “I'm really lonely, Scott.”
“What?” Scott says, loudly, and Isaac blinks at him.
He totally hasn't been expecting this. “No, you're not,” he insists. “You're with the pack.”
“Yeah?” Isaac's mouth twists into that old, self-deprecating smile. “So where are they? I live by myself, Scott. I haven't heard from Boyd in eight months. Derek never came back from Washington after—there is no pack, Scott. All that's over now. It's just me left here.”
“That could be a good thing,” Scott insists. “You can do whatever you want. You're smart and talented.” Gorgeous, funny and a hell of a good lay. “You don't have to stay in Beacon Hills. There's nothing—” Scott's heart is beating too fast. It reminds him... it reminds him of the moments right before an asthma attack, when time slows down.
There's nothing left here to fight, is what Scott had been going to say. Nothing stopping you. But he can't get the words out for some reason and there's a long enough pause for Isaac to assume he's finished.
Isaac says, “I don't like being an Omega.”
“I don't know what you want me to do about that,” Scott whispers. His heart is breaking a little. He feels bad for Isaac. The guy's whole family had died on him, and things with the pack had been so fucked up even way back when that it must have been like—like jumping from the frying pan straight into the fire, going right from his father's house to Derek's. Fighting for his life against one monster, then another, then another.
Before Scott left Beacon Hills, he hadn't seen or spoken to Isaac in months. He thought he'd left, honestly. But he never really had. And wolves need a pack to be strong—at least, that was something Derek had always tried to impress upon Scott. Maybe Isaac had actually taken the words to heart.
Maybe Isaac, who seemed so strong and confident with his ripped jeans and go-fuck-yourself smirk, is still lost. Floundering, same as he'd been when Scott first met him, for something real to grab onto.
Scott cares about him. He does. But he's in no condition to be anyone's life-support system.
“Look,” Scott says after a minute. “If you need help, I can talk to Dr. Deaton. I just saw him yesterday, and it looks like he could use a hand at the clinic again, and, I mean, he always liked you.”
“Jesus, McCall.” Isaac laughs disparagingly. “This isn't about money. I got plenty when I turned twenty-one. Everything my dad didn't drink away went to me, no siblings to fight over it with or anything. I sold the house last year,” he says, swallowing thickly. “The Whittemores bought the land just so they could demolish it. And they overpaid. But I guess their property value probably went up.”
“Isaac, no,” Scott sighs. “That's not... I meant if you needed someone to talk to.”
“Because I can't talk to you? Just... stop it, okay. Stop everything, god. I sound pathetic. I don't even know what I thought you'd...” Isaac trails off, gazing at the ceiling fan, spinning lazily in the center of the kitchen, propelled by the slight breeze coming through the windows in the hall. “I wanted to say thank you, that's all. This week with you, it just made me think about stuff. Like, what might have happened if things were different.”
Scott nods. “I know what you mean.” He does, truly and deeply. “But things weren't different. I mean, they're not different. Shit happened, and things are what they are.”
Isaac studies him for a long time, like Scott's face is a novel written in some secret code he should be able to decipher but he just can't manage it. Scott thinks he knows exactly how he feels.
“Okay,” Isaac finally says.
“I don't leave until tomorrow morning,” Scott says. So, there's that. Isaac nods.
He hangs around all day, watching shitty daytime television and talking with Scott about the classes he's taking at the community college and how awful his job at the coffee shop off campus is. Scott tells him a little more about the nursing program he's enrolled in and then Elan wakes up, commanding their full attention until Melissa and the sheriff arrive home within ten minutes of each other.
Isaac stays for dinner, which is significantly more substantial than lunch on account of it being mom-made. It's a little awkward, too, with the sheriff there, asking Isaac questions that clearly suggest he remembers arresting him, and Isaac getting out, and people getting hurt.
“You know, none of that stuff was his fault,” Scott reminds the sheriff sharply at one point, and Mr. Stilinski apologizes by way of serving Isaac another huge helping of vegetables. Eventually, Isaac and Scott's mom start talking about some town budget thing that's been all over the local news and Scott spaces out until Elan decides he's had enough of being relatively well behaved and launches what looks like it's going to be an epic tantrum. Scott and Isaac help clear some of the dishes while Elan screams and finally his cries are too piercing, and Scott wants to pick him up and carry him outside and walk with him until he calms down, but there's some sort of mom vs. kid endurance challenge taking place, so Scott wipes his wet hands on a dishtowel and crooks his head toward the stairs.
Isaac has never been in Scott's bedroom, but he must be able to smell it because he goes right for Scott's door once they're upstairs. Scott follows, shutting the door behind them.
Isaac sniffs and says, “Stiles sleeps in here?”
Scott nods. “Sometimes.” Isaac must have a better sense of smell than he does, he thinks, because he's definitely changed the sheets and cleaned up since the last night Stiles spent in his bed. His bed, which Isaac is now sitting on the end of, looking around at Scott's various sundries. All the things he didn't care enough about or that were too impractical for him to bring to Connecticut. A rough pencil sketch of what his life used to look like. Isaac nods at Scott's electric guitar, leaning against its amp in the corner, utterly neglected.
“You play guitar?”
“I did,” Scott says, sitting down next to Isaac, very close but not quite touching, bed creaking in protest of their combined weight. “A little, I mean. I haven't in like, forever, so. Don't ask me to give you a practical demonstration or anything.”
“Can I have a practical demonstration?”
“Damn it, Lahey.” Scott finds Isaac's hand, palm upturned, and starts tracing lazy circles on it with the tip of his index finger. “Wanna make out on my bed?”
“Are you kidding? I've been fantasizing about this since high school.”
Scott laughs a little. He can't actually tell to what degree Isaac is messing with him, which is weird, because he can always tell. Those little ticks, those jumps of the pulse. With Isaac it's like all that stuff is muted, and there's only him and Scott, left to guess, to feel out what the other might want or need.
“Okay,” he says, and then they're kissing. It escalates pretty quickly from there, with a surge of need and want coming over Scott in a wave so that within minutes he's pressing Isaac into his mattress, climbing over him, pinning his wrists down and straddling his slender waist. Sucking bruises onto his stem-like neck then soothing the violent, violet patches with his tongue.
“I don't want to stop seeing you,” Isaac says while Scott tries to kiss every inch of his stomach. “This is what I'd call a total bullshit situation.”
“Shh,” Scott says, breathing hard, palming the bulge at the front of Isaac's jeans.
“I like you,” Isaac says, and it's on the tip of Scott's impatient tongue to tell him to stop, to not do that or say that because it's going to mess things up, mess them up. But then he opens his mouth and what comes out is that he likes him, too. He likes him like that.
Isaac flips their positions and shucks Scott's shirt over his head and tugs his jeans down over his hips and they move together, against each other until Isaac comes quietly and sits up, rutting with more purpose. Scott curves his hands around Isaac's ass and helps and less than a minute later the pleasure-spiked pressure in his spine reaches critical mass and he releases his load onto his stomach and chest.
Isaac pushes his fingers through their combined mess, touches the tips of his index and middle fingers to his lips, experimental, before sucking both digits into his mouth. His pupils are huge and so black.
He cleans Scott off with his tongue. It's the hottest thing Scott has ever seen.
--
School is school, only it's different now because there's Isaac, somehow, almost every day.
Mostly they text. Scott is pretty awful at actually talking on the phone, and Isaac is a thousand times worse, so they start with short messages. Just casual stuff.
It's snowing in CT. After spring break. WTH?
I just spilled an entire bowl of Spaghetti-O's on my bed.
Do werewolves have a higher tolerance for 5-Hour Energy shots?
Horrible band on campus right now. Horrible.
I got an A on my Ethics paper.
Reading ASOIAF. I want to light Joffrey Baratheon on fire.
And so on. After a couple of weeks, Isaac finally gets his moody, six year-old laptop repaired (and why doesn't he just buy a new one? Scott wonders more than once; it's as if Isaac doesn't actually want to touch the money he has at his disposal) and they can video chat, which is infinitely more satisfying.
“I kind of miss you, McCall,” Isaac says. His web cam is the newest thing about his laptop, so the picture Scott's seeing is pretty clear. Isaac is wearing his work shirt, a black t-shirt with the coffee shop's logo silk-screened on the front where the pocket should be. Scott inhales through his nose and imagines he smells Jamaican Blue. Isaac is staring at him, too, appraising, and Scott isn't imagining that.
“Take your shirt off,” Scott says, and bites his lip.
They don't always jack off while staring at each other, but it happens.
Scott thinks it's a little odd. The sex was one thing, but he can look at porn anytime, an infinite, intricate web of filthy material at his fingertips all courtesy of the high-speed cable internet he and his roommates split the bill for. Only Isaac looks beautiful when he comes, mouth slack, head tipping forward, and Scott squeezes his own dick, rubbing his thumb over the slit, wet with precome.
“I wish I could fuck you,” Isaac says, slumping in his chair, breathing heavily. “Bet you'd be so tight and hot.”
“Jesus.”
After they're both cleaned up, Isaac sits back and smokes, rocking side to side in his chair in a way that makes Scott a little dizzy but he can't look away. “You shouldn't smoke,” he says, vaguely, after a while.
“Pretty sure my lungs heal just as quickly as the rest of me.”
“Still. Secondhand smoke. Air pollution. Millions of non-biodegradable cigarette butts littering the land.”
“Man, you're a buzz kill. Can I enjoy my post Skype-sex nicotine, please?”
“You shouldn't look so sexy when you smoke.”
“Oh?”
“You're confusing and angering my inner health care professional.” Isaac blows a delicate yet hearty smoke ring. “Stop, damn it.” Scott grins.
They disconnect when Scott can't keep his eyes open any longer; he actually falls asleep for several seconds first, starting awake to find Isaac watching him, a hazy smile playing on his lips. Once Scott's climbed into bed, seconds away from passing out, he manages to send a text.
I kind of miss you, too.
--
On weekends, when Scott doesn't have a lacrosse game and the clinic where he interns hasn't scheduled him too many hours, he meets Stiles in Worcester, Massachusetts, which is about halfway between Boston and Storrs. There's a diner that serves breakfast all day and startlingly good coffee and the first time they'd met there during their freshman year of college it became an instant tradition. Observed at least once a month, no excuses.
Which is why Scott is tapping his foot under a little cracked table and staring at his phone when Stiles comes back from the bathroom to find both of their meals have arrived. Stiles is three large mouthfuls into his short stack before he nods at Scott, one eyebrow quirked. He swallows. “Who's texting? Is it dad? Or mom?” Scott laughs. He always does when Stiles calls his mother mom, he just loves it so much. “Oh, god, did Elan figure out how to dial a phone? I'm changing my number tomorrow.”
“It's Isaac,” Scott says.
“Oh.” Stiles sniffs, then drains half his glass of orange juice in one go. “Is that still happening?”
“Nothing's happening. He's in California. I'm here. Not conducive to happenings.”
“So? What does he want?”
I want to come to your graduation. I'll pay for my own ticket. Don't make this weird, McCall.
“Just saying hey.”
“You're lying. Liar.” Stiles frowns. “That's emphatically your lying voice, not to mention your lying face and your lying shoulders. Have I told you recently what a bad liar you are?”
“I'm a fantastic liar.”
“Liar.”
“Fine.” Scott puts his phone down, slides it across the linoleum tabletop. Stiles shoves another small pile of pancakes into his mouth and Scott picks at his toast while Stiles chews and scrolls through Scott's message history with Isaac. His eyes widen a few times, but mostly he just reads and eventually swallows, coughs a little and clears his throat.
“Gorgeous cock?” Stiles says.
“Fuck.” He thought he'd deleted those. Not that the less explicit messages are any more or less incriminating—incriminating, that's a weird word. Why should he care who knows he's sleeping with Isaac? Or doing the separated by a country equivalent?
“You know, it doesn't surprise me.”
“Me and Isaac?”
“That you've got a gorgeous cock. I mean, you've got that body working for you, great hair, eyes like the sky on a starless night, fathomless and dark, glittering with a million points of light, all hidden, like secrets, beyond the reach of human sight but there, constant and undeniable.”
Stiles is majoring in creative writing. “So, you know, why wouldn't you have a gorgeous cock?”
Scott is very hungry all of a sudden. He scoops two overflowing forkfuls of eggs onto a toast point and crams it into his mouth. Stiles exclaims, “Hey! Remember that time Isaac and all his super-strength punched me in the face? And if Deaton hadn't made me that poultice I probably would have had a black eye for the rest of ever?”
“I remember a lot of people punching a lot of faces back then,” Scott says, and he's not talking about the time Jackson Whittemore turned into a fucked up were-lizard, or the shit with the alpha pack, or Peter Hale's second betrayal (which in all fairness he had seen coming, like, come on) or even the thing with that coven when all the shapeshifters in a thirty mile radius of Beacon Hills had lost their collective shit for a week and, oh yeah, there had been infighting then. Scott remembers making ten apology calls over the following days, and getting quite a few himself.
No, he's talking about after. After high school and before college. The worst thing. The thing that made Scott and Stiles both decide to go to school on the opposite coast; that made Derek dissolve what was left of his pack for the health and safety of everyone involved; that made Isaac retreat so effectively that Scott had thought he'd seen the last of him—and that had hurt, Scott can admit now.
It hurt bad.
He doesn't want to lose track of Isaac, his friend, again. Isaac, who had been so brave and calm when the world was ending. But, it hadn't really been the end, had it? Not for them. “Are you pissed at me?” Scott asks Stiles, quietly.
“Hm?” Both of Stiles's brows go up this time. “No. I mean, hey, it's your life. But if he ever flips out on you again don't think I won't finish what the Huntress started back in high school. The Huntress being your ex-girlfriend and what she started being severing his spine. Hey—would that finally make me Batman?”
Scott glares, frowning, until Stiles relents. “I don't know. I guess I just thought, if it was gonna happen with the two of you, it would have happened back then.”
“Maybe I didn't need it to happen back then,” Scott says. “But you thought about it? Happening?” Because as much as they've grown up, grown apart and back together again, always, he still wants his best friend's—his brother's advice. Stiles shakes his head and screws up his face.
“Not like that, ew. Just like,” he pauses for several seconds, “he looked at you funny. Like, okay, Derek was his alpha, but you were the one he looked at.”
“Yeah, but it's not like Derek was Mr. Forthcoming back then.” Or ever, really.
“It was more than that, though. It was like, okay, remember the first time you saw Allison, and later that night you told me that it was like all the air went out of the room and it didn't come back until she walked in and sat behind you, and after that it was like she was your primary source of oxygen?”
Scott shakes his head. He doesn't remember saying any of that to Stiles, but to be fair, he doesn't remember much about the days after he'd first met Allison save for Allison herself. (Allison, who's still in his blood, the way people who break your heart and whose hearts you break never really let go—and they'd each done both, over and over, because that was how their love had been. Beautiful, like demolition. Only eventually there was nothing left for them to blow up.)
“Anyway,” Scott says, “even if he liked me or whatever, it wasn't like that. It's not really like that now. It's... I don't know.” Scott picks up his last piece of bacon, puts it back down. Stiles eyes it hopefully. “It's comfort. It's familiar. It's not like it's going to last. Eventually he's gonna want something real.”
“I was so wrong.”
“About what?”
“You really are a good liar,” Stiles says, stealing Scott's bacon and using it as a kind of swinging arm to collect the remaining syrup on his plate. “You've definitely got yourself fooled.”
“Are you bringing a date to my grad ceremony?”
“What?” Stiles blinks, swallows his sugary maple infused bacon. “I don't know, bro. Maybe?” He glances at Scott's phone a final time and brightens. “Hey!” he says. “It's past noon.”
“Lunch?” Scott asks.
“Hell yeah, motherfucker.” Stiles winks at Scott, slides him his phone and signals for their waiter.
--
Scott texts Isaac once he's back in his off campus apartment, which is probably three times as big as Isaac's place, only he shares it with three other people. Two share a room and the other sleeps on the couch. Scott has his own room only because he'd agreed to pay as much in rent as the students bunking together, with the couch sleeper shelling out the least.
The cost is steeper than perhaps is logical, but Scott needs the privacy, both for studying purposes and because once a month for about seventy-two hours he's not very fun to be around, and he'd probably have mauled a frat boy by now if he didn't have a door with a lock on it.
He lies on his back on top of his blankets and texts: Plane tickets are really expensive.
The return text comes almost twenty minutes later. Scott pauses the old episode of Breaking Bad he'd started watching on his laptop and snatches up his cell. You're making it weird.
It's just a boring ceremony. I'll be back in BH a few days after.
Not the point. I want to see you.
Scott's confused at first. Could Isaac really not wait three extra days to see him in person? He's about to reply when he realizes what Isaac means is that he wants to see Scott graduate, and it makes his heart do that weird thing again where he feels like he's drowning but also like he's taking deep, cold breaths, the winter kind that actually hurt. He takes a minute, reconsidering his response.
He types: I'll see you when I get home, okay?
You really don't want me to come?
It's not that. I feel too bad about the money. His parents are spending over a grand themselves to come with Elan.
You know it's really gross how chivalrous you're trying to be.
If you come you have to let me pay for everything while you're here. I'm serious.
Guess what, Scott? It's 2018 and it's awesome! We have the iPhone 10 and gay marriage and legal weed in almost half of our 50 states! Join me here.
Okay, Scott sends.
Okay you'll join me in this century?
Please be my date at my graduation.
Isaac's return text comes ten minutes later.
I can do that.
--
Scott graduates in early May. He's not a -torian or anything, but he's got a cum laude on his diploma which makes his mother and the sheriff both cry when he tells them.
Isaac flies in with Scott's family the day before the ceremony, and Scott meets them at the airport in the car he's rented for the weekend.
“He kept him entertained the entire flight.” Scott's mom tilts her head toward Isaac and passes Elan over to Scott in one fluid motion. He's mostly asleep, bustle and noise of the crowded terminal be damned.
“Hey,” Scott whispers into his hair.
“Hey,” Elan mumbles, wrapping his arms tight around Scott's neck. Scott catches Isaac's warm gaze over Elan's shoulder.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” Isaac nods, and smiles, and Scott is in love with him.
It's not like his first love, like a fire burning him alive in an instant. It's the kind of love that starts so slow you don't realize it's happening until it's done, and you're in it, and you have no idea what you're supposed to do next, whether you should flail and fight to escape, or close your eyes and let yourself sink.
Scott's family stays at a nice little motel about fifteen minutes away from Scott's apartment. Isaac stays with Scott. They'd never even discussed it, Scott thinks when he's opening his door. Two of his roommates are home, one shut inside the second bedroom, the other watching TV in the communal space. She barely nods at Scott and Isaac as they beeline for Scott's room. Isaac is actually walking in front of him. He must recognize Scott like he had in Scott's house, his dirty clothes in the hamper he'd shoved into his closet during his cursory cleaning spree. The sheets and comforter on his bed.
The second Scott's door is closed, Isaac's arms encircle his shoulders and Scott's hands are sliding around Isaac's waist. Isaac's chin digs into Scott's shoulder and Scott's cheek is pressed against the side of Isaac's neck. He drops his face into the curve where neck and shoulder meet and closes his eyes and inhales, dragging his nose up the length of Isaac's throat, breathing and breathing him in. He knows and loves the smell of his skin, the way his long fingers rake up into Scott's hair.
“Scott,” he says, then Scott is kissing him, pushing his hands under his shirt, touching him, finally. Isaac fists the front of Scott's hoodie, screwing up his college's logo. They manage to cross the small space to reach Scott's bed, and Scott pushes Isaac onto his back, climbs over him, kissing his jaw, mouthing at his clavicles through the thin t-shirt.
Isaac's hands roam all over Scott's back, pulling his shirt over his head and trailing his fingers down Scott's chest, drawing the lines of his tattoos, ducking up to kiss the ink just above Scott's heart.
“What does it mean?” he asks, but Scott barely hears him, kisses him quiet, ducking down to explore all the sharp curves of Isaac's bones with his tongue, the swell of hip and the slats between his ribs. It's not enough just to screw. He wants to carve his name in Isaac's heart, wants it to beat for him and him alone. He wants to travel back in time and love him over all those years gone by before he knew who Isaac Lahey was. It's a feeling unlike any other, darker and more dangerous than the rabbit-hearted love he'd felt so fiercely in his youth.
They're hard and rutting, little gasps and sighs like poems dedicated to each other's necks. Scott loses his fingers in Isaac's curls, faintly stiff with product like Scott's own. It smells good. Everything is good.
He's about to go off in his jeans and he doesn't care. He just wants to feel as good as Isaac looks and smells and Isaac suddenly moans, throatily, but it's not a happy noise, his hands coming up to grip Scott's shoulders firmly. “Stop,” he says, quietly, then loudly. “Scott. Stop.” And he's pushing him away.
Scott shakes his head, comes back to Earth. Levels out. He rolls over and sits up, awkwardly. “Okay?”
He looks at Isaac, who stares at Scott, expression faintly betrayed, his lips parted and shiny and bright red. “Are you? Okay?” Scott asks again. Impending ecstasy is dampened, tamped down by the heady, heavy feeling of something off, something wrong between them that's maybe been there the whole time.
“I don't want us to be this,” Isaac says, somehow both accusatory and apologetic. “Just fucking so we can both feel something.”
“I know,” Scott says after a pause, and he does, because he feels the same. He wants more, so much more from Isaac, he just doesn't know what exactly it is, or how to begin asking for it.
His mother and birth father's relationship had been poison, and Allison... the way he'd felt when they ended for real is something he never wants to experience again. He knows he couldn't handle it.
And Isaac isn't just anyone. He's Isaac. Tall and beautiful, powerful and unpredictable, sweet as anything and a little bit terrifying, Scott can admit, because he really rather likes it.
“Say it,” Isaac says. “Say you're gonna come back to Beacon Hills and be with me.”
“I can't. Oh my god.” Scott laughs a little, and Isaac's eyes get narrow and his lips pull into a snarl. “I can't, because it's fucking scary, okay? I don't want—”
“You don't want to get serious because you're scared?” Isaac asks, and for a split-second Scott thinks he's going to say he understands, that it's okay, they can take their time. “Fuck you, Scott.” His voice is strange and sad.
“Isaac.” Scott swallows thickly. “Please don't.”
“No, really. Fuck you.” Isaac sits up straight and his voice gets even louder. “You think this isn't scary for me? Jesus Christ—everyone I've ever cared about is gone. My mom left, Derek left, you left. My family doesn't exist anymore. You think I haven't thought about how I'd feel if I lost you for good? How it would kill me to have to bury you like Camden or Jackson or—”
“Don't fucking talk about Jackson!” Scott snaps.
Isaac scowls at him. Scott hates that particular expression on his face.
He says, “You still blame yourself, don't you? For what happened to him.”
Scott's mouth goes dry. “I convinced him to come back from London,” he says aloud for the first time ever. “I was supposed to be with him in that parking garage when the ritual went down.”
“And if I'm remembering this right—which I fucking better be, since I've had about a thousand nightmares about it, you would have been there if a cult of sadistic, demon-worshiping rogue hunters hadn't nailed you to a tree and shot you full of enchanted arrows.” All the raw emotion has gone out of Isaac's voice and face, while contrarily, Scott feels more like he's going to fly apart with each passing second.
He can still feel those arrows, precisely where they'd pierced his flesh, in his right shoulder, his left pectoral, his stomach (right through it, he'd thrown up), two in his abdomen, one in his thigh; it had been so hard to keep on breathing with his mouth and lungs full of his own blood. “If Jackson hadn't died that night,” Isaac continues, “all of us would have. You and me would not be sitting here right now because there would be no here for us to sit in.”
Scott shakes his head. “It's so unfair.” They'd buried so many bodies during the worst months. Any one of them could have been Scott, or Stiles, or Isaac. Scott's mom or Stiles's dad. Any one of them could have been the sacrifice. But Jackson was the only one in that parking garage. At least if Scott had been where he was supposed to be, when he was supposed to be there, Jackson would have had a 50/50 shot at college and a serious relationship and a goddamn future.
“None of us knew about the second wave,” Isaac says. “If we had, we would have taken them out first and you wouldn't have been caught, and we wouldn't have been too late. If what happened to Jackson and those other wolves is your fault then it's my fault, too. It's everyone's fault—you know what, Scott?”
Isaac stands, moves to Scott's desk like a blur and closes his fist around the stand to his desk lamp. He throws it and Scott doesn't move to stop him, or to stop the lamp from hitting the wall, glass shade and light bulb shattering. Scott starts a little, blinking at Isaac's back, his bunched-up shoulders. He doesn't feel angry with him for breaking the lamp. If anything, he feels calmer than he had seconds earlier. “It was their fault,” Isaac growls. “Not yours.”
“Mm.” Scott looks at the shards of green and yellow glass on his rug. He wonders why neither of his roommates have knocked on his door, briefly, before remembering they aren't the kinds of roommates who knock on each others' doors for any reason. “Anyway,” Scott says. “It doesn't matter now, so. Fuck it, right?”
He blinks again and, oh. He's crying. Perfect. The night before he graduates and he's with the guy he's been waiting for since before he realized he liked guys and he's crying and they're fighting somehow (are they?) about something that happened four years ago. Isaac turns around, finally, and he looks pissed off, but then they make eye contact and his face goes slack.
“I thought you were dead,” he says numbly. “When I found you, and you weren't even breathing—”
“You saved my life.” Scott nods. He's not sobbing, not close to that, but the tears don't stop falling.
“Yeah,” Isaac says. “I kind of owed you.” He steps back into Scott's space, cupping Scott's face with both hands and kissing the tear-tracks on his cheeks, kissing his mouth the way Scott imagines people kiss at the altar. The sweetness doesn't last; they push-pull each other back to Scott's bed, lips parting and slotting together again. Scott has just enough presence of mind to grab the remote to his iPod dock off his nightstand, turning whatever music he'd been listening to last up loud enough to drown out at least some of the noises they're already making. The soft wet sound of lips on lips. The louder moan Scott releases when Isaac palms the bulge at the front of Scott's jeans. “Tell me what you need,” Isaac exhales.
“I don't know,” Scott mutters. It's all too intense. “Ah—I don't—” Isaac is kneeing his thighs apart, slotting his hips between them. Scott pushes up against him as hard as he can, every part of him reaching, stretching, straining toward the same parts of Isaac, wanting to be joined with him. He doesn't say anything else, but Isaac gets the hint, or reads his mind, or something, and when he kisses Scott again it's with curiosity and reverence.
“Thank you,” he says. “For everything.”
It takes a while for Isaac to open Scott up, working lubed-up fingers into him tortuously slowly. There's some fumbling with the unopened box of condoms and when he's sheathed he kneels between Scott's legs, breathing for several seconds before pushing just the head of his cock into Scott.
Whatever stretch and burn and dull ache of pleasure he'd felt from Isaac's fingers is nothing compared to this, Isaac moving slowly, entering Scott inch by wonderful, agonizing inch, until Scott can't take it anymore. He pulls Isaac down by his shoulders, kissing him, biting his lip so hard Isaac draws back and hisses.
His eyes burn bright, burnished gold, and the stillness is hurting Scott now, so when Isaac snaps his hips forward and starts literally fucking the hell out of Scott, attacking his neck with his mouth, Scott can only groan in ascent.
“Harder,” Scott says, shoulder blades pressed into the mattress, back arched. "Fuck me harder." He can feel the sharp points of his teeth with his tongue, Isaac's own scraping the skin of Scott's throat. “Please. Baby, please.”
Isaac bites him hard enough to break skin, and Scott gasps and presses his heel into Isaac's lower back. He pants against Isaac's ear and Isaac eventually pulls off his neck, opening his lips against Scott's again so that Scott can lick at his teeth and tongue until Isaac pushes up with both arms, sitting back and grabbing Scott's hips, driving into him, again and again, and it's perfect. He's perfect.
Scott comes with Isaac deep in him, just rolling with the full-bodied pleasure of it, better than anything he's ever felt. He drags his claws down Isaac's back and Isaac's thrusts go uneven and he comes, quick and hard.
After, they roll onto their sides, Isaac behind Scott, his hand in the dip of Scott's waist. He mumbles sleepily against the back of Scott's neck. “But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called—called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”
“Hm?” Scott blinks his eyes open. “What?”
“Something Stiles quoted in one of his novel-length emails.”
“Stiles emailed you?”
“A few times over the past month. Said he'd come after me with a shotgun if I didn't lock you down.”
--
Stiles shows up with a date. She's petite with dark hair and her name is Clara. Scott likes her, but he doesn't see it lasting long. It rarely does with Stiles. He says he's sowing oats, whatever the hell that means. Scott thinks he just doesn't know what he wants yet.
It feels good to know, Scott thinks, when he's accepting his diploma. He doesn't bother looking for his family in the audience, knows he wouldn't be able to meet their eyes in the brief time he has on stage. But he can feel Isaac's eyes, sharply focused on him, like twin blades, like lightning bolts.
--
Back in Beacon Hills, they visit Jackson's grave together. He's buried at the top of a hill where all the most elaborate, expensive monuments are. His own grave is an ornate monolith of glittering marble, lording it over all the other lowly tombs, so. Very apropos.
Seeing it makes Scott feel marginally better, and he gives himself permission to get to know Isaac.
He learns that Isaac's favorite breakfast food is English muffins with melty butter and cinnamon-sugar. His favorite books are the Dune series (the first four, anyway, apparently they get a little dodgy after that) and his least favorite movie is House of the Dead. He's passionate about Doctor Who and the band Joy Division. He likes Marvel comics (he had a falling out with DC, apparently, he's still bitter about it) and he cooks this tequila-marinated steak that makes Scott want to weep the first time he tastes it.
He still has nightmares, sometimes. They're not too bad, but they aren't flowers and kittens, either, and he doesn't like to talk about them, so Scott learns not to ask and just holds him until he either falls asleep or rolls over onto Scott and kisses him, wet and desperate, and Scott makes him come with his hand or his mouth. He knows how to do this in under two minutes. Or, if they're up for it, over an hour.
The first full moon they spend in bed together, they fuck the entire night. Werewolf stamina and recovery time is awesome, now and again.
The next morning, there's a sheen of dried sweat on Isaac's skin and fading bite marks on his hips. He leans over Scott and kisses him and tells him he loves him, and that's pretty awesome, too.
Gradually, the warmth of summer sinks into the earth and Scott's bones, and he learns to laugh again, without fear.