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Jackson Whittemore felt like he was walking on air as he walked out of the Law Firm. After being caged in a marriage with Lydia, who for all the love he had given her would never be the one for him, for four years, he felt invincible.
Right up until his face it the sidewalk, that is.
“Oh my god!” a sharp voice exclaimed from the ground near him. “I’m so, so, so sorry mister!”
Jackson groaned as he sat up and placed a hand under his bloody nose – fuck it was probably broken wasn’t it? – so he didn’t drip all over his nice suit, he found a nervous looking little boy sitting on the sidewalk next to him. The boy had a few scraps on his face but the only major damage seemed to be the bloody knee the boy wasn’t so much as glancing at as he spewed apologizes at Jackson.
“Calm down, kid,” he muttered as he tilted his head down. From the corner of his eye, he watched the kid before sweeping the area. After concluding that the only person paying attention to him was this kid, he asked, “Where’s your mother?”
“I don’t have a mom,” the kid declared.
Jackson felt a rush of guilt as he choked out, “Your dad then?” Tears welled in the little boys eyes almost immediately. “Oh god, please tell me you have a dad kid.”
“I-I do,” the boy hiccupped. “But Daddy is going to be really mad at me when he finds out I’m not in the park. H-He only let me g-go play with E-Erica because I promised to stay in the park with h-her mother.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Jackson continued questioning, “Where is Erica’s mom?”
“T-They h-had to leave b-but,” the boys words were getting harder and harder to make out as he began sobbing harder, “I-I didn’t want to l-leave so I told them D-Daddy sa-said I could be al-alone. B-But I g-got bored and w-w-wanted t-t-to go to the Library l-l-like daddy said we would when he f-f-finished b-b-but I couldn’t find it.”
He ran the hand not coated in blood through his hair before standing up, careful to keep the other hand under his nose. The kid’s head tilted up with the motion. “Come on,” Jackson declared with a head motion. “I’ll take you back to the park and we’ll see if you can’t find your Dad, kid.”
The boy hesitated for a minute before standing up with Jackson. They walked in silence for a minute before Jackson said, “Aren’t you bothered by your knee at all, kid?”
“I get hurt a lot,” the boy mumbled. “P-P-Papa said i-it’s because I’m c-c-clumsy like Daddy.”
Jackson smiled, “I got hurt a lot as a kid too. But I think that was more because I was always doing what I wasn’t supposed to.” Jackson laughed and looked down, “Do you do things you’re not supposed to, like running away from the park, a lot, kid?”
“My names n-not kid,” he grumbled.
“Well,” Jackson drawled, “what is it then?”
“Isaac,” the boy replied softly. “Isaac Stilinski.”
“I’m Jackson Whittemore. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Isaac.”
They had barely passed the chain link fence around the children’s park when a sharp voice screamed, “Isaac!” Jackson turned just as Isaac was enveloped in a hug by a man wearing the ugliest plaid shirt he had ever seen. “You gave me a heart attack, you little bugger.”
“Sorry Daddy,” Isaac declared as he returned the hug. “I just wanted to go to the library.”
“Don’t ever do that again,” the man declared, pushing Isaac away and looking into his eyes. “Do you understand me? If you do I swear to god you will never see Uncle Scott again.”
Horror settled onto Isaac’s face as he protested, “But Daddy! Uncle Scott always brings me cool presents and-”
“Then you won’t do it again, right?”
Isaac looked at the ground and nodded. “Yeah.”
The man pulled Isaac into another hug. “Good.”
Suddenly feeling extremely awkward, Jackson coughed, “I’ll just um…be going now.”
“Wait!” Isaac shouted and his hand darted out to grab Jackson’s pant leg. He looked his dad in the eyes, “Daddy, we have to take Jackson to the hospital.”
“Huh?” Jackson breathed.
The man’s eyes narrowed at Jackson. “And why is that, Isaac?”
“Because he tripped over me on the sidewalk and his nose is all crooked now!” Isaac exclaimed, gesturing to Jackson’s face. “Then he helped me get back here because I didn’t know the way. We have to be nice to him because he was nice to us, Daddy.”
“Oh…” the man blinked several times and Jackson had a flashing thought about how his eyes looked like molten gold and god they were beautiful before he stood. “Come on then, I’ll take you there.”
“You really don’t have to,” Jackson tried to protest. “I can get there by myself and I mean, my car is still parked at the law firm so-”
“Then I’ll drive you back there afterwards,” the man amended. He flashed a smile. “Just agree. I’m not going to give up.”
Jackson fidgeted nervously under the gaze of the two before finally agreeing, “Fine. Fine. I’ll let you drive me to the hospital.”
“Excellent,” the man drawled with another grin the size of China. He gripped Isaac’s hand tightly as he led him towards the car. “I’m Stiles."
“Jackson.”
“Well thanks for helping Isaac, Jackson,” Stiles declared, squeezing his son’s hand. “Even if he disobeyed me.”
“I said I was sorry, Daddy,” Isaac exclaimed, burying his face in Stiles’s jeans. “Jackson wasn’t busy anyway. He told me, when we were walking over here, that it was okay since his only plans involved getting plastered and banged because he wasn’t taken anymore, whatever that means.”
Stiles’s eyes sparked with laughter as he answered, “Did he now?”
Jackson felt his cheeks lit up as Stiles glanced over at him. He glanced at the ground and muttered, “I really didn’t say that.”
“Yes you did!” Isaac exclaimed. He pulled off his Dad and looked up at Jackson. “When I asked you what you meant you said your ex-wife didn’t have any fun and-” Stiles had slapped his free hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing.
“Oh shut up kid,” Jackson muttered, giving Isaac’s leg a light kick.
Jackson sighed as he settled back into his seat. He glanced over at Isaac, who was still playing Fruit Ninja on Jackson’s IPhone even though it’d been a good fifteen minutes since he’d left for his x-ray, and Stiles, who was flipping through one of the magazines from the side table, before saying, “Really, you don’t have to stay. I can call my ex-wife or someone to come get me.”
“I don’t know why you’re still trying to get rid of me,” drawled Stiles, flipping the page without looking at Jackson. “Haven’t you realized in the past hour that I’m not going anywhere?”
“I don’t understand why,” Jackson admitted after a few beats of silence. “I helped your son back to you, any decent human being would have, but you’re not under any obligation to stay here with me. Plus, you’ve got to have something to do.”
“Mhm you say that,” Stiles hummed, “but it’s not really true. It took me twenty minutes to cash my check and I was searching for Isaac for thirty after that. I don’t know when he left exactly but considering how busy it is downtown, I’m willing to bet plenty of people just walked by him without a thought. Or would have helped him just to sue me.” He paused, looking up at Jackson, before saying, “You’re not going to sue me are you?”
Jackson twisted his face and looked up to the ceiling in false thought. Then he shook his head, “Nah.”
“Good because I really don’t think I could afford that,” Stiles laughed. “You look like the kind of guy that’d win. Anyway, I don’t have anything to do for the record. Isaac just got back from vacation with his father so my only plans were to hang out with him all day.”
“I thought you were his…?”
“I am,” Stiles interrupted. He glanced over at Jackson, “Is that a problem?”
Jackson shook his head. “Of course not. My best friend, Danny, is gay. I just didn’t realize when Isaac said he had no mom he meant that. And I’m going to shut up now because I’m starting to feel like a douchebag.”
Luckily for Jackson, at that moment a nurse entered with his x-rays and the things she needed to plaster his nose.
Several minutes later, Jackson was walking out of the hospital with Isaac in his arms poking at the plaster.
“You kind of look like Squidward, Jacks,” Isaac declared as he ran a finger down the side. “Except its white and not green. Squidward is green, right daddy? Not blue?”
Stiles hummed from Jackson’s right, “Green indeed.”
“Squidward is my favorite!” Isaac exclaimed, flinging his arms out and Jackson struggled to keep the six year old from falling backwards. “He’s a grumpy pants just like Papa! I bet if Spongebob just gave Squidward a hug like I do to Papa he’d be all right! Don’t you think so, Jackson?”
Jackson nodded, “You are absolutely correct, little guy.”
Isaac placed his hands on Jackson’s cheeks and squeezed, “My name is Isaac. Say it with me, Jackson, Isaac. Isaac.”
“Isssssssaac.”
“No. Isaac.”
“Isack?”
“Isaac.”
“Isaac?”
“Yes!”
“Okay then, Isack.”
“Jaaaaaackson!”
Next to them, Stiles was finding it hard not to giggle at the exchange.
Fondness bubbled in his stomach, Isaac was such a shy kid that he didn’t normally take to people this quickly. It was a relief to see him acting like a normal six year old instead of hiding behind his leg.
“Daddy,” Stiles turned to see Isaac with his head tucked under Jackson’s chin, “can Jackson come to dinner with us?”
Jackson blinked in confusion, “What? Isaac, your daddy said this is your first day back with him. Don’t you want to spend it alone?”
“No,” Isaac answered, burrowing farther into Jackson’s chest, “because I like you a lot. Please come with us? We can even go somewhere different if you don’t like steak.”
“It’s okay,” Stiles said, bumping Jackson with his hip. “It’s not like we had anything special planned. I was just going to take him to Outback since it’s his favorite steakhouse. He’s got this creepy thing for spices, I blame his father.”
Jackson was about to deny the request, he really didn’t want to intrude on something so personal, when he caught sight of Isaac’s wide blue eyes and pout. “Yeah, okay, then I guess.”
“And, and then Uncle Scott just blew it u!” exclaimed Isaac with a wide sweep of his arms.
Jackson laughed as he stole a fry from the kids plate, “Your Uncle Scott seems very silly.”
“More like very stupid,” Stiles muttered. “I have no clue why I chose to be best friends with such an idiot. Like how many people do you know that put a hot dog in the microwave for thirty minutes instead of thirty seconds at the age of thirty-four!”
Jackson just laughed as he ate his food, listening to Isaac’s stories and Stiles’ occasional input.
Isaac was half way through a story about his best friends Erica and Boyd when a rather broody and bulky man stopped near their table. He glanced over at Jackson before narrowing his eyes at Stiles, “We need to talk.”
“Papa!” Isaac exclaimed. “You have to go away. This is supposed to be my time with Daddy!”
“It’s fine buddy,” Stiles said as he ruffled his hair. He shot a look at Jackson, “You can look after him right?”
Jackson licked his teeth self-consciously as the man’s glare turned back to him. “Yeah, I got it. Isaac can finish telling me about Boyd and Erica, that okay with you kiddo?”
Isaac nodded as Stiles slipped out of the booth with a warning, “Be good for Jackson.”
“Okay Daddy,” Isaac agreed. Immediately after, he launched into the rest of his tale while Jackson continued nodding, laughing, and stealing fries. “A-A-And then there was one time when Boyd’s big brother-”
Isaac’s story was cut off by a loud smack. The whole restaurant quieted and turned to see Stiles red in the face, hand still in the air, and the man holding his jaw.
“Don’t you dare tell me I can’t take the man who brought my son back to me,” Stiles hissed, “when you moved your whore in without even warning me!” Jackson moved quickly when he noticed the other man beginning to recover.
Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around Stiles from behind and put his chin on his shoulder. “You must be Isaac’s father right? I’m sorry to interrupt but we promised to take Isaac to see Spiderman today, it’s the only day I have off work, so we really do have to go.” He let his arms slip from Stiles’ waist to his clenched fists, twining their fingers together. “If you’re ready that is, sweetie.”
“Yeah, of course,” Stiles answered after a beat. Jackson loosened his hands and began to step back, only to be cut off by Stiles’ lips on his. It was quick, only a few seconds at the most, but the feeling of Stiles’ chapped, but soft, lips against his own made Jackson’s eyes flutter shut and his hands tighten their grip again. When he pulled away Stiles’ eyes were a bit hazy. “Come on.”
Jackson forced his hands to relax and stepped back so Stiles could grab Isaac’s hand – the boy having following Jackson over. “I left the money on the table,” Jackson declared, a hand on the small of Stiles’ waist as they walked away.
“Bye Papa!” Isaac called. As soon as they were out of the restaurant, Isaac asked, “Can we go see Spiderman now?”
“I took you to see Batman earlier,” Stiles argued.
“Yes but Spiderman is cooler! Spiderman is from Marvel and everyone knows Marvel is better than DC, Daddy. Right, Jackson!”
Jackson hummed, “Right.”
“And Jackson wants to see Spiderman too, right?”
“Oh yeah, totally,” he responses despite the fact that just yesterday he’d been denying Danny’s requests to go see said movie in favor of seeing The Bourne Legacy. “Spiderman is the best isn’t he, Isaac?”
“Well, Spiderman is cool,” Isaac declared with a wave of his hands, “but I think Ant Man is the best!”
Jackson blinked and glanced over at Stiles, “Ant Man? Not Iron Man or Daredevil or someone like that?”
Stile just shrugged as Isaac launched into a rant about why Ant Man was clearly the best superhero.
Once Isaac had fallen asleep, the ride to Jackson’s car turned out to be an extremely awkward trip. When they finally reached the law firm, his yellow Porsche visible even in the dark night, only a few words had been exchanged.
Jackson coughed, “So um…I’ll be going then.”
He went for the door handle only to be stopped by Stiles grabbing his arm.
“Oh um…” Stiles’ face turned a vicious red. “Oh god it’s just…Isaac really likes you and I really like you and-”
Jackson placed a hand on the back of Stiles’s head, jamming their lips together in a kiss, and fuck it felt amazing. Stiles’ lips were warm against his and every nerve in his body was buzzing with excitement because Stiles – and that adorable little boy in the backseat – just fit with him so perfectly. Pulling away when he heard a rustling in the backseat - Isaac stirring – Jackson let his forehead rest again Stiles’.
“Do you have a pen?” he whispered.
“Y-Yeah,” Stiles answered shakily. “The dashboard. Isaac throws stuff of there.”
Jackson kissed Stiles, short and sweet like in the restaurant earlier, before pushing himself backwards. He lifted off the seat slightly, straining the seatbelt, and searched through the pile of paperclips, crayons, and bunched up sticky notes before finally finding a neon orange gel pen.
Taking Stiles’ hand he scribbled his number on the palm before pressing his lips against it. “Call me. Soon. None of this wait three days shit. We can go out whenever, just the two of us or with Isaac or whatever works because I really want to get to know you two better.”
“Okay…”
“Hey,” Jackson tapped the bottom of Stiles’ chin, “you do like me right? Because I’m going to feel like a massive idiot if this whole thing was just-”
He was cut off by Stiles’ giving him another quick peck of the lips.
“Of course I like you, idiot,” Stiles said. “’It’s just that I don’t meet many guys who are okay with the fact that I have a son.”
“You’ve been looking in the wrong places then. Because your son is fantastic,” Jackson replied. “I’m going to leave now, though, because I really want to kiss you again but said son is in the backseat and may wake up at any moment.” He kissed Stiles’ forehead before slipping to the other side of his seat and opening the door, “See you soon.”
“Bye,” Stiles answered with a small smile.
As Jackson walked to his car and started it up, he felt that feeling from earlier swell up in his chest.
The feeling of over whelming joy and hope for the future