Chapter Text
Scenting emotions doesn’t come as easy as Isaac thinks. He’s been given an advantage—he knows this. He, at least, had been given a choice. He knew what he was getting himself into—or so he thought. Derek hadn’t explained it well enough. And now—now the world is spinning and he feels as though he’s seeing color for the first time. He cannot differentiate the myriad of scents around him and loses himself quickly. Fear smells like lust. Happiness smells like anxiety. Anger smells like amusement. Conflicting emotions permeate the air with such a thickness that it impairs Isaac’s vision.
If the sensory overload only happened at certain times, Isaac would be okay, but it doesn’t. It happens constantly. He cannot escape it—even if he closes his eyes. He still breathes. He still hears. The world is a cacophony of every second of every minute and every minute of every hour. His only respite is sleep, and even that does not come easily. The headaches keep him up.
The headaches eventually lessen, but he continues to be astounded by their sudden arrival.
They happen most often in class. A newly bitten werewolf surrounded by the intoxicating scent of teenage pheromones is too much for him. If he so much as tries to concentrate on the lecture or task at hand, he has to fight a headache as well.
No one ever turns to notice. No one looks his way. When he ducks his head behind a textbook to ride out the waves of pain, not even the teacher steals a glance in his direction. It has always been like this—and now that he’s been given this new gift, these new senses, he is overwhelmed. He’s always been used to pain, but until recently it has always been external. This pain comes from within and radiates outward until he can feel it everywhere. Internal becomes external. Red becomes blue. Isolation becomes rage.
Isaac doesn’t realize he’s drumming the eraser of his pencil hard on his desk until it snaps. He manages to catch the attention of someone and he glares at them until they turn away.
He refuses to believe this will get better with time.
He is drowning, spiraling downward and out of control. For the first time, he longs to be shut in that freezer again just to block out sensory input. He hates himself for wanting that. Hates himself for even thinking it. He’s gritting his teeth and listening to the clock tick on the wall and trying not to let the echoes pierce him.
Suddenly, there is a feather-light touch on his arm and the entire world pauses. The only sound he can hear is now the beat of his own heart. The only smell he can identify is sweet and soothing, like fresh linen and grass. Like sheets drying on a clothesline. When he turns his head to glance down, there’s a familiar hand at the crook of his elbow and Isaac stares at it.
The hand belongs to Scott McCall.
Isaac steals a side glance to Scott long enough to catch his smile and receive a quick nudge. “You okay?” Scott mouths silently. All Isaac can muster is a shaky nod. It must be enough because Scott withdraws his hand and goes back to writing his notes.
Everything is a dull roar, even Isaac’s own heartbeat. He lets out a breath of relief and can actually concentrate on class again. When he gets the chance, he steals a look toward Scott, but their eyes don’t meet again for the rest of the class.
Isaac’s headache is gone.
*
Days go by. Weeks. Isaac isn’t making as much progress on his new senses as he or Derek would like. He loses his normal lunchtime seat when both Erica and Boyd stop showing up at school. Isaac feels more alone than ever. The isolation hits him harder than when it was just him and his father. He has gotten a taste of what friendship can feel like, and now it’s been stripped away.
So one day, at lunchtime, Isaac sits with Scott and Stiles without asking. They do not call him out on it, so he settles peacefully and picks at the cafeteria food on his plate. Isaac usually ate with Erica and Boyd, but they have been missing since the week Jackson made his transformation from the kanima to a werewolf. The pack dynamics had changed after that. Isaac felt weaker. He was finally starting to think of the four of them as a family, but that had changed drastically.
In a perfect world, Isaac would have the two of them back, and together with Scott and Derek and Jackson and even Peter… they would make a perfect pack, humans included. But Isaac’s world is far from perfect. He barely even has a pack now, anyway. Scott refuses to join and Derek is at odds with Peter more often than not. Despite the plethora of werewolves around him, Isaac feels alone.
Jackson and Lydia, lost in their world, don’t sit with them. Isaac wonders if that will change, but the outcome doesn’t matter to him much. He’s more concerned with Scott and Stiles. The two of them are hunched over each other, watching a video on Stiles’ phone. It must be hilarious, based on the way the two of them have their hands over their mouths, trying not to laugh so that they can concentrate on the video.
Isaac can’t help but to feel left out, but it only lasts a second before Scott raises his eyes to him again after the video is over and says, “Dude, you have to watch this, it’s hilarious.”
Seconds later, Isaac has his tray pushed out of the way and he is leaning over the table, eyes glued to the video screen as Scott holds it up. He is leaning over the table as well, meeting Isaac halfway. Stiles stays where he is seated and stuffs his cheeks with food, gauging Isaac’s reaction. Apparently, it is very important that he laugh at the joke.
As it turns out, Stiles has found a compilation of dog videos that he claims resemble the various wolves in his life. At first, they appear to be normal clips of dogs running into things or biting body parts by accident. Isaac has seen thousand of those clips on America’s Funniest Home Videos. After a bit, though, Isaac can completely understand why he’s watching this. There’s a clip of a little kitten standing up to a Rottweiler and Isaac can’t help but to think of Stiles and Derek. Isaac bites back a giggle, but with Scott hovering over him, laughing loudly at a dog head butting a tennis ball back at its trainer and hitting her over the head with it, Isaac can’t help but to start laughing along with him.
The movie ends and Scott moves to sit back in his seat, smiling so hard his eyes crinkle at the edges. Isaac stares at his eyes for a moment. He’s pretty sure he could decipher a smile even if the rest of Scott’s face was covered, leaving only his eyes. It’s a good thing he prefers to watch Scott’s eyes smile because staring at his lips would be embarrassing. In fact, now that he is thinking about it, he has to force himself not to look. He clears his throat and pretends that his laughter at the video made his mouth dry. “Awesome,” he says, reaching for his drink.
“Dude, I know, right?” Stiles says. He presses forward and takes his phone from Scott’s hand, hiding it from the view of not only the teachers but probably the cameras as well. The school is too cheap to get rid of the expensive technology now that they it’s there. “I think the one where the pug tilts his head to the music is you, hands down.”
Isaac nearly spits out the drink he just took. “What? Out of all the clips, I’m the ugly pug?” He looks to Scott for confirmation but Scott just laughs.
“Have you seen yourself as a wolf? Nightmares,” Scott admits. Isaac looks at him with his best hurt impression, but Scott redeems himself quickly by adding, “Which is weird because you’re actually pretty attractive as a human.”
Before Isaac can properly react to that, Stiles flips out and raises his hands in protest, mouth open in mock offense, “Oh, so you can tell him he’s attractive, but you can’t tell me that? Some friend you are.”
Scott shoves at his friend, “That’s because you’re you.”
“Whuh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means it doesn’t matter. If my defense, you would probably make an ugly wolf, too.”
“I would not! I would be sexy. And I would keep my eyebrows on.”
Isaac laughs at the two of them and simply watches their banter. Sitting there, with the two of them arguing over who would make the prettier wolf, he isn’t even bothered that he is still an outsider looking in. He knows if he’s silent long enough, one of them, usually Scott, will turn to him for a second opinion. In fact, he counts the seconds until it happens.
Only thirty of those seconds go by before Scott whirls around, extending a hand in the direction of Isaac. “Back me up here!” he whines, “Who ever heard of a wolf with a buzz cut anyway? It would just make his ears look weird.”
“What have you got against my ears?” Stiles chirps.
Isaac throws both hands up in defense and shakes his head. “I’m staying neutral on this one.”
“Come on, man,” Scott reaches over to Stiles and rubs a hand through his hair, going against the grain. Stiles’s neck flops like a bobblehead and he swats at Scott’s hand, but he doesn’t look annoyed. “I’m just teasing.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Stiles presses his hair down by rubbing his palms forward over his scalp. Isaac can’t tell the difference and isn’t quite sure why Stiles feels the need to fix his hair.
“Well,” Isaac offers suddenly, his mouth speaking before he lets it. “At least it’s easier to manage that way. Try dealing with these curls,” he says, raising his gaze to indicate the blonde mop on his head. Every day is a losing battle with his hair. Most of the time he lets it do what it pleases.
Scott, who by some freak reason of nature feels the need to reach out and touch his friends at every given opportunity, now extends his arm to Isaac’s head across the table to feel his hair. Instead of rubbing in the same way he did Stiles, he tugs at a curl and works it between his fingers before letting it bounce back. Isaac’s breathing stops and he fights hard to keep his heartbeat calm. Stiles may be used to having Scott touch him all the time, but Isaac is only used to the type of physical contact that brings him pain. Scott isn’t yanking his hair to get Isaac to follow him somewhere; he’s tugging it to watch his curls bounce. It’s new and strange and Isaac doesn’t know what to make of it.
Something subtle changes in Scott’s eyes and he draws his hand back. He clears his throat and says casually, “Your hair feels like a truffula tree.”
“A what?” Out of everything he expects Scott to say, that isn’t even in the ballpark.
“It’s from… nevermind,” Scott says. Stiles is looking back and forth between the two of them and bursts out laughing and just like that the tension is lifted. Isaac’s hair is ruffled about by both Scott and Stiles and Stiles calls him the Lorax and just like that Isaac feels like he is accepted by their friendship.
The Scott and Stiles duo is now a trio.
*
Training with Derek is proving more difficult now that Peter is around. Peter and Derek have conflicting ideas and will often squabble to the point that Isaac finds it easier to simply let his wolf subside and take a break. This happens more often than not.
Without the looming threat of Gerard, they train at the Hale House. There is more space available than the abandoned Beacon Hills Railroad Depot. Derek and Peter probably prefer the feel of staying in their family home and Isaac basically prefers the smell of leaves and trees and dirt to the smell of rusting beams and old grease. His wolf feels safer in the woods. He felt caged in that depot, and not just because Derek literally chained him inside a forgotten steel train car-shaped death trap.
The rival alpha pack symbol on the front door looks burned in. Derek leaves it up as a reminder to his dwindling pack that there are others out there, waiting. They have yet to catch even a whiff of the alpha pack on the wind, and Erica and Boyd are still missing. Derek is under the assumption that they have gone and joined the pack… or else found a different place to stay.
Or they are dead.
Isaac doesn’t like to think about it. The void that both Erica and Boyd left is large. They were beginning to feel like the brother and sister he’d never had. The three of them were a team. They had received the bite from their Alpha so close together. Something like that creates an unspoken bond. They trained together, they fought together, they played out Derek’s poorly written plans together. And now they were gone, and Isaac was alone with two bickering Hales.
“You need to bite another wolf!” Peter all but shouts. Isaac can hear the strict commanding tone in his voice. It’s a testament to Derek’s strength or annoyance that he doesn’t even flinch.
“Don’t you think there are enough wolves in Beacon Hills?” Derek says calmly.
“And yet none of them want to stay in your pack. Except buttercup over here,” Peter motions to Isaac and immediately follows with, “It’s a compliment,” which is directed right at Isaac.
Isaac holds his perfectly non-wolfed out hands up, making sure to stay out of yet another argument.
“What about Stiles?” Peter asks.
Derek wastes no time in responding. He let’s out a sharp bark of, “No,” before Peter can even get another syllable in. “I’m not biting Stiles.”
Peter gives Derek a look that Isaac can easily interpret as disbelief, but maybe not for the reason he is thinking. “Good luck getting your pack together, then,” he says, his hands up in a mock surrender. He then grits out in a low growl, “You’re the fucking alpha.”
Derek scowls at his Uncle and says, “They will come back. All of them.”
Isaac pulls apart a leaf on the ground. He ticks off all the other werewolves in Beacon Hills in his head. First there’s Jackson. Isaac barely knows Jackson. He’s not even worried if he never joins Derek’s pack. Isaac had come into this game prepared to take Jackson down—not become a packmate. As far as he knows, Jackson wants his powers to himself. He’s not concerned with werewolf pack dynamics or anything that come with it. The chances of Jackson walking up to the Hale house and demanding training are so low, Isaac has a better chance of winning the lottery.
He makes a mental note to try to score some lottery tickets the second he turns 18.
After Jackson, his mind immediately reverts to Erica and Boyd again. He is worried and there is no point in lying to himself about it. Derek told him a few days back that they had attempted to run away. It makes no sense to Isaac. Why would they want to? They knew… they all knew, that Derek brought them in to make himself stronger—not just to give them another option in their life. When Derek convinced them to join his pack, he made his intentions clear. They all knew they were stronger as a pack.
So why, why would they leave? When Isaac found out, he had gone for a long run in the woods to try and sniff them out, but any sign of Erica and Boyd were long gone. Perhaps they had run away after all. Maybe they hadn’t come into contact with the Alpha pack—the same pack that wasn’t coming out of hiding any time soon. They are simply leaving cryptic symbols everywhere. Isaac thinks it is getting old.
And yet, there is one more wolf in Beacon Hills and Isaac can’t help but inwardly smile when he thinks about him. If anyone could join Derek’s pack in the next few days, it would be Scott McCall.
Isaac likes to think he has two packs: Derek’s and Scott’s. Derek’s pack is all politics and fighting and survival. Derek’s pack is filled with training sessions and pain and shouting.
Scott’s pack is different. Scott’s pack is filled with lacrosse and laughter and silly dog videos. Scott’s pack has Stiles and his Jeep and video games. Isaac almost doesn’t want to combine the two. He doesn’t want to ruin the pack dynamics with him and Scott and Stiles, but he also knows that for the safety of both packs, they need to combine.
He also knows that it’s impossible for him to learn properly under the guidance of Derek. As if on cue, Derek and Peter must have come to a conclusion because they turn in unison toward Isaac. Derek looks stoic, but Peter has a strange grin on his face. Isaac looks up at them in confusion.
“Get up,” Derek says strictly.
Isaac wastes no time in obeying his alpha. Peter takes a step forward, his canines elongating. Isaac looks back and forth from Derek’s unreadable face to the predatory face of the former alpha.
“We’re testing reflexes,” Derek says. “Be happy I warned you.”
Isaac barely has enough time to really understand what Derek means by that and suddenly Peter is launching himself at the younger wolf. Isaac shifts faster than he ever has in his short life as a werewolf and ducks just in time for Peter to catch his claws on the back of his shirt. Isaac pulls forward with all his strength and breaks free long enough to dash away and regain his footing. Peter gives chase out of instinct and Isaac grounds himself, ready to go toe to toe, head to head, claw to claw.
He knows it’s going to hurt before it happens, but he’s so used to pain by now that he can take it. It doesn’t mean he has to like it.
During his fight, he has one recurring thought and it is accompanied by the crinkle of skin around a pair of dark brown eyes on caramel skin.
I need a different teacher.
*
Hours later, Isaac finds himself on the same block as the McCall household, but he doesn’t allow himself to get too close to the house. Scott’s mother knows about werewolves, now, and has taken extra precautions to make sure she knows when one is nearby. She hasn’t gone as far as circling her house in mountain ash, but there is wolfsbane growing in the garden in the back. Isaac doesn’t want to do anything to piss off Mrs. McCall, so he only makes certain to come over when he is invited by either her or Scott—and right now he is invited by neither.
The family car is not in the driveway so Isaac safely assumes Mrs. McCall is not home and he lets out a sigh of relief and he makes his way toward the residence. He ran the entire way here from the Hale House. He still looks worse for wear. All of his injuries have long since healed but he is still dirty and there are dead leaves in his hair. His clothing does not heal the way his skin does, and so his shirt is torn and matted and there are bloodstains on it. He looks much worse than he feels. Peter had not gone easy on him.
In fact, there was a point where Isaac swore he saw Peter’s eyes glint red, but it must have been the afternoon sunset. Derek was there to pull the former alpha off him, anyway, and Isaac dismissed himself pretty quickly after that.
The only place he can even think of to go is to Scott’s house. He still has his status as a homeless runaway, despite still going to school. The system hasn’t tried to take him in, yet, which is nothing short of a miracle. Even though he never goes to his father’s house, any social worker can easily pick him up from school.
His situation is complicated and he knows it.
At least in the Hale house he has a bed. It is essentially a mattress on the floor, but the safety that comes with it is much better than what he has grown accustomed to over the last six years. He still misses his father, but that part of him is slowly disappearing, too. A new, more confident Isaac is emerging and that same newfound confidence now has Isaac walking up the pathway to Scott’s door.
He intends on knocking like a civilized person. He doesn’t plan on going around to the side of the house, scaling the wall and bracing himself to tap a finger on Scott’s window, but he’s on his way to doing that without even realizing.
Before he can even tap the window, he hears his name coming from somewhere inside and he freezes. He doesn’t mean to listen in—it just sort of happens. He really should just turn tail and flee. He can face Derek and Peter and his mattress on the floor just fine. Instead, he stays, and he listens.
“What’s wrong with Isaac? He’s cool,” Scott’s voice moves back and forth across the room. He’s pacing and he’s on his cell phone. Isaac can’t tell who is on the other line. He can only hear Scott’s voice because it is so clear and only in the next room. The tinny sound from the cell phone only comes as a garbled noise, but he can tell it belongs to a female. Something deep in his gut churns.
“He’s in control, Allison. I can tell. I went through it, myself,” Scott sounds upset. Isaac frowns and not just because of the tone of Scott’s voice, but also because of the name Allison.
The truth is Isaac is scared of very few people in the world now that he’s been given these amazing powers—but Allison is definitely one of those people. Isaac can rip her throat out easily, but that requires him to get close to her—and she has that horrid crossbow. She can take him down while he charges.
He has been on the receiving end of two of those arrows and they hurt like a bitch. He has even been on the receiving end of her daggers—all while Scott had watched. It had been humiliating and degrading and Isaac knew why he was distracted. He hated that Allison had taken advantage of his hesitation.
Isaac hoped—he still does actually, that Scott would just realize and accept the type of her person Allison could become. She is by no means insane, but she had let her grandfather warp her mind. The pack has yet to find Gerard’s body, so there is a very good chance he is still alive. Because while Gerard lives, Allison is a potential threat. She simply needs a good push in the right direction—or the wrong direction from Isaac’s point of view.
He is a part of Scott’s pack. Scott should have that need to protect his pack mates. So why is he still talking to her?
Isaac knows the reason, but he doesn’t want to think about it. It hurts him not just in an emotional way, but physically, too. Yes, his wounds had healed, but whenever he thought of Allison, they came back as if they had never left. The blades would twist in his side every time Scott mentioned her and he did. At length.
“Just trust me on this. You do still trust me, right?” Scott continues, his voice hitching. “Good. I trust you, too. I’m telling you right now: don’t even touch Isaac. He’s done nothing to you. Don’t even think about using him to get to Derek or to Peter. Tell that to your father as well. … yes, yes I realize that. Yes, Allison, I know I’m jumping to—yes. But you said I shouldn’t--! I’m not giving him up. He’s my friend. I… yes. Okay. Fine. Stop worrying so much. I’m fine.”
Scott hangs up and stares at his phone like it personally offended him, but then his eyes soften and he looks so sad. “Why do I love you?” he says, like he hasn’t hung up, yet. His fingers curl around the edges of the phone and he brings it to his mouth in a chaste kiss. Isaac’s heart breaks in a thousand ways to see Scott so torn up like this. He wants to reach out and climb inside Scott’s room. He wants to envelope the shorter boy in his arms and hold him and pet his hair and tell him jokes until his face brightens.
Instead he pulls away and makes his way back to the ground. He can’t bring himself to climb in on Scott like that. He’s too vulnerable. So Isaac marches around to the front of the house and knocks on the door like a proper house guest. He can hear every step Scott takes as he makes his way down the stairs and to the front door. Despite knowing he could probably pick up on Isaac’s scent, Scott still looks surprised to see him.
“Hey, Isaac! It’s… late. You okay?”
Isaac gives Scott a weak smile. He knows what he looks like. “Training,” he says in short. “Derek doesn’t have any running water at the Hale place. Can I… use your shower?”
Asking for the shower wasn’t Isaac’s original plan, but he is too scared to ask Scott about his true intentions. Scott lets Isaac inside without a questioning glance. “The good shower is upstairs and on the left. I could let you borrow some clothes, I guess,” Scott says with a shrug, leading the way.
“Thanks,” says Isaac. It’s all he can say. Scott can probably smell the dried blood and sweat and dirt on him so he doesn’t feel the need to explain himself further than he already has. As far as Scott knows, Isaac really is stopping by to use his shower.
They don’t say another word to each other as Isaac shuts himself in the bathroom and strips down completely. He lets the warm water rush over him and tries hard not to let the fact that he’s standing in Scott’s shower get to him. He takes a careful look at all the various shower products. This shower is clearly Scott’s or possibly the guest shower. There are no fancy hair products lining the walls. Mrs. McCall probably uses a shower attached to her bedroom. This house is certainly big enough for one of those, anyway.
Isaac pours a generous amount of Scott’s shampoo into his hand and works his hands into his hair, lathering it up. He closes his eyes and lets the smell of the soap rush over him. He knows it’s just a brand name of product, but it smells so much like Scott that he just wants to bathe in it. When he realizes again that he is actually in Scott’s shower and that he can do just that, he gets a bit light headed.
How creepy is he becoming? Isaac rests his head against the cool tile of the shower wall to help clear his mind. He knows he is completely justified in being angry and jealous about Allison. Scott is his friend… his first friend since Matt. Matt’s friendship was short-lived, too. They used to trade comics all the time, but ever since that swimming party at his father’s house, Matt had never been the same. He and Isaac drifted away. Isaac never made friends after that, so he thinks the world of Scott. Allison had tried to kill Isaac—could still be trying. There is a complete and total conflict of interest, there.
What Isaac doesn’t understand is how much it hurts somewhere in his chest to hear Scott say he still loves Allison. He doesn’t understand wanting to cover himself in Scott’s scent. He doesn’t understand staring at Scott’s jaw or the corners of his eyes. Surely friends act like this, right? Scott and Stiles are all over each other. Isaac wants that, but he only wants it with Scott. It’s not that Isaac doesn’t like Stiles, he just doesn’t get that same warm feeling that Scott gives him.
It’s all so confusing to him and he needs to sort it out, but he can’t sort anything out until he can get his wolf under control. He needs to rid himself of his headaches. He needs to learn which smells to ignore and which smells to pay attention to. He needs to learn how to scent emotions. He needs to be able to hold his own against Peter in case Derek decides to use him for training again. He needs to become stronger so that he can go out and look for Erica and Boyd himself. If and when that alpha pack decides to make itself seen, Isaac doesn’t want to be afraid. He has so much more on his plate than to worry about why Scott makes his insides turn or why Scott’s touch can both help him concentrate and lose his mind all at once.
Isaac steels himself and finishes his shower. He towels himself dry and changes into some of Scott’s spare clothing right there in the bathroom so that when he emerges, he is fresh and clean and dry and not at all naked. He glances about the hallway to gather which direction he needs to go and sees the door to Scott’s room open, so he heads inside.
Scott is lying on his bed, thumbing through his phone. When he sees Isaac he sits up quickly and quirks an eyebrow. Isaac can feel his eyes running up and down the length of his torso. Finally, Scott lets out a laugh pointed directly at Isaac’s middle.
Isaac looks down to see that the shirt Scott let him borrow is too short and just looks generally… off. If Isaac were to so much as raise his arms a bit, his midriff would show. He self consciously tugs at the hem of the shirt and can’t stop himself from blushing, “I can’t help it if you’re short!” he retorts.
“Hey!” Scott says in defense. He kicks his legs off the side of the bed and pats the spot next to him. “Sit down. You’ll look less ridiculous.”
Isaac hesitates and finally sits next to Scott, making sure to keep himself at a reasonable distance. He reminds himself that he is here for a reason, and the thumping heart in his chest will just have to take a vacation. “It’s your clothing, I’ll probably always look ridiculous,” Isaac shoots his friend a grin, trying to ease the situation a little bit so that he can segue his way into his official request.
“Hey, I could make you take them off right now.”
Aaand Scott really isn’t helping at all. Isaac closes his eyes and desperately fights for a change of subject, but he ends up heading squarely in the direction he has been trying to avoid. “Derek is a lousy teacher,” he blurts out.
When he opens his eyes, Scott looks like he’s recovering from a blush. Maybe he did know what he said earlier after all. His face contorts a little, though, obviously in shock from the strange change of subject. “What?” is all he manages to get out.
Isaac shrugs a bit, scooting himself up on the bed so he can lean up against the wall with a sigh. “Derek’s teaching methods. They don’t work,” he clarifies. He watches Scott’s face closely as he speaks, hoping beyond hope that Scott will give him the answer he wants from his unspoken question.
Scott just stares at him, his expression blank, and his lips slightly parted like he’s hovering between talking or not. Finally he says, “Okay?” And then, as if that weren’t good enough, he adds, “Derek is your alpha. It’s really up to him to teach you, isn’t it?”
“Well, who taught you when you were just learning?” Isaac throws the question out there.
“Um…” Scott’s brow furrows, “I learned most of it myself, I guess. Stiles helped a lot with the research. A chunk of it was instinct. And… then some of it was Derek but he never really answered my questions and he was cryptic as hell and annoying on top of it and oooh…” he cuts his string of words off and smiles to himself, finally understanding. “Yeah, he really is a crap teacher, isn’t he?”
Isaac grins along with Scott, relaxing a little. He knows, by pack standards, it is wrong of him to speak like this about his alpha, but Derek really doesn’t know what he is doing and he doesn’t have the people skills to pull it off properly. Scott is the alpha of his own pack, a different kind of pack and yet he has the people skills, or at least the hold over Isaac that can help him learn at a much faster rate than he has in the past. “You’re the only other wolf I can trust to answer my questions,” Isaac offers, still not really voicing his question.
“You want me to teach you?” Scott’s eyebrows raise in shock as he turns sharply. “No. No way. I’m not a good teacher. I can’t even learn at school properly. Have you seen my grades?”
Isaac reaches out before he knows what he’s doing and places a hand at the crook of his elbow just like Scott had done all those blurred days ago. Scott’s panic seems to calm. “I think you will make an excellent teacher. Honestly, all I have are questions… questions I was hoping you could answer.” Isaac says slowly and deliberately, taking extra care not to worry Scott about the new responsibility.
“Questions?” Scott doesn’t move his arm away from Isaac’s. “Like what?”
“Like scenting emotions,” Isaac says with as much nonchalance as he can muster. “I can’t tell some of them apart. I can identify fear easily. It gets the wolf in me riled up. But the more subtle emotions? I can’t tell. How can I tell?”
Isaac can see the blush in Scott’s ears and cheeks before he can smell it. There’s a rise of muted blood that gives his cheeks the color. It smells awkward and Isaac can’t quite put a finger on it. He’s sure that once he learns the name of the emotion, it will become easier to pinpoint again. Scott clears his throat. “You kind of have to do some guesswork? Maybe? That’s what I did. It’s a mixture of facial expressions and heartbeats and things like that. Like sweating? That helps identify when someone is lying, or nervous or … something. Does that make sense?”
Isaac nods. This he already knows. “What about happiness? What does that smell like?”
“Happiness?” Scott repeats the word and gets a faraway look in his eyes as he is no doubt conjuring up a memory. “There’s a basic happiness feeling that sort of smells like cake.”
“Cake?”
“Maybe that’s just what I smell,” Scott says sheepishly. “But then again, happiness smells different on different people. When Stiles is happy it smells almost like embarrassment,” he laughs a bit and then pauses. “But for Allison, it’s different.”
Isaac can’t hide is scowl even if he tries, so he simply turns his head away at the mention of her name. Scott must be used to people getting annoyed with his Allison speech because he swallows loudly and it makes Isaac blurt out, “What does my happiness smell like?”
Scott frowns and finally places a hand over Isaac’s on his arm and tugs his hand away, placing it on the bed between them. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ve ever smelled happiness on you.”
He looks so sad and Isaac sniffs the air to see what it smells like. Is this sadness? Or guilt? Or pity? Isaac doesn’t know, but he doesn’t like it, either. He wants Scott to be able to scent his happiness. He wants it to smell better than cake. “What do you usually smell?” He asks instead.
Scott’s face falls like he doesn’t want to say. “Sadness.”
“What if my happiness smells like sadness?”
“That’s impossible,” Scott says and then cracks a smile. “And stupid. I don’t want you to smell like sadness.”
“I don’t either,” Isaac says truthfully. He glances sidelong at the alarm clock beside Scott’s bed where it flashes the time in bright red numbers. “I should probably head back before all the curfew patrols start driving around. But…” he stands up and stretches a little. “Thank you for the shower, and the clothes… I’ll bring them back, I promise.”
“No rush,” Scott says, standing up with him and walking him downstairs to the front door. The descent down the stairs is so much easier than going up them not that long ago.
When they are at the bottom, Isaac hesitates before turning back to Scott. “So, is that a yes? You’ll be my werewolf tutor?”
Scott scrunches up his face. “Can we call me your coach? Or something? Tutor makes me sound like we have to sit over textbooks and I do enough of that already.”
Isaac can’t help but laugh as he agrees and a part of him soars high with gratitude. He can hit two birds with one stone like this. He can become a stronger member of both his packs and get the chance to spend more time with Scott. It’s a perfect scenario and he knows he’s smiling stupidly. And Scott is smiling back at him. “Great.”
Scott’s eyes widen. “Sweet.”
Isaac nods and heads for the door, thinking that is the end of their conversation, but suddenly there is a grip on his wrist and he is being pulled back. Scott’s nose is at his shoulder and he’s inhaling deeply. Isaac holds completely still until Scott murmurs against the fabric of his own shirt. “Sweet,” he repeats, finally letting Isaac go. “That’s what your happiness smells like. It’s a good smell on you.”
Isaac doesn’t know what to say so he keeps his smile plastered to his face. He knows his heart is beating loudly. He can hear it. He swears he can hear a second heartbeat just as loud and he knows he needs to get out of there and fast before he does something stupid like stare at Scott’s lips again.
So, wordlessly, Isaac slips out the front door of the McCall house and when he makes it to the street, he gets down on all fours and just runs.