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Isaac doesn't speak the entire bus ride home.
They stalled long enough - missed the meet, and Stiles somehow convinces Coach Finstock that Isaac's brief trip down memory lane with one of the twins and his fists (even though, of course, none of them know that first fight wasn't even a fight) is just a three hour bus ride without any bathroom breaks taking its toll.
Cabin fever, Coach, he says, and don't think the school board would take kindly to that knowledge and Finstock looks him up and down and blows his whistle hard. Stiles sags into the seat ahead of Scott with Lydia next to him, Isaac stays in front with Finstock blocking him in and Boyd leaning over the back of his seat to whisper in Isaac's ear and Isaac
Isaac still hasn't said a word.
Scott doesn't think about it, doesn't think about why his voice is the thing that pulls Isaac out of himself, why his name in Scott's mouth becomes a beacon for the humanity that gets buried deep when you're too far gone into a change to do anything but give in to your animalistic instincts.
(Doesn't think about it, can't think about it, because he doesn't know what it is just yet, and it's better for them both if he ignores it.)
He spends the bus ride back with Allison at his side and her heart beating a steady pattern - first time it's done that around him in weeks. Nothing's changed - or maybe it has, just not the way Scott wants it to. He figures it's a sign of maturity, being friends with an ex. A mark of adulthood to be around someone so important without feeling like he's going to claw his heart right out of his chest.
They're not back to normal - but really, were they ever? - and they're not perfectly fine, but she smiles at him and even though it's a shadow of what it used to be, it has to count for something.
*
Stiles won't let Scott drive he and Isaac home on his bike, says something about how, hey, you almost died buddy, think that calls for a little bit of caution. He's passing it off like a joke, but Scott can see the worry in his eyes - Stiles tackles everything headfirst, but the inevitability of his loved ones’ deaths invariably stops him in his tracks, freezes him in place and grips him cold and cruel by the throat.
Isaac doesn't argue, and carefully places Scott's bike in the back of the Jeep with bungee cords while Scott hugs Stiles until his bones click and slide against each other and he mutters with his face pressed into Scott's shoulder, "Still human - don't heal as quickly."
"I'm alright," Scott says in response, and Stiles' arms circle around him and he lets out a breath.
"I know, dude. Just maybe - got scared for a bit, back there." They stayed latched on for another moment before Lydia clears her throat from behind them.
“Hate to interrupt the love fest -”
(Stiles says, voice muffled, “You’re just jealous.”)
Scott smiles, and pulls away; Allison is next to Lydia, hands folded in front of her, the picture of calm. Her stitches are still holding him together and he’s thankful that she’s here, that she cares, so he hugs her, too.
“Thank you,” he says. “For - just. Thanks.”
“All that training comes in handy, I guess,” she muses. “Let me know once it heals completely?”
“I will. How are you getting home?”
“Oh, we’re not going home just yet.” Lydia holds up her keys, and gives Allison a smile. “Someone left her car stranded at a rest stop three hours away, so we have to go bring it a gas can and fill it up.”
“Need help?” Stiles has the driver’s side door open, and he’s half hanging out of it, waiting. Allison smiles and shakes her head.
“No, we can take care of ourselves.”
“Be careful.” Isaac, from the back seat of the Jeep. It’s the first thing he’s said to them in hours. Allison nods once, composed.
“We will. C’mon,” she turns, tugs on Lydia’s blouse. “Let’s go before it gets too dark out.”
“We should get going too,” Stiles says, and Scott glances over his shoulder at them: Stiles has the driver side shut now, and Isaac’s leaning his head against the window. He jogs around to the passenger side, climbs in and shuts the door.
Isaac’s eyes are closed when Stiles’ Jeep roars to life, and Scott twists in his seat, asks, “You okay?”
“I want to go home,” Isaac says. Stiles eyes flick up to his rearview mirror at that before he chances a look at Scott.
Scott sags low in his seat and ignores that, too.
*
Scott’s mom is already gone for the night when they pull up, and once they get Scott inside - he’s still a little weak, his body worn out from not healing itself - Stiles gives Scott another hug and then says he has to book it back to his before the Sheriff sends out a search party.
“He wouldn’t,” Scott says as he climbs the stairs to his room, Isaac behind him, and Stiles makes a face.
“I’m pretty sure he still thinks that the Virgin Homicides thing is a distinct possibility, and we all know where I fall on the purity ring scale. Isaac -”
Scott stops walking and peeks: Isaac has a hand reaching out like Scott’s going to faint any second and he jerks his chin at Stiles. “What?”
“I,” Stiles’ gaze flicks to Scott, and back again. “Be careful, okay?”
Scott starts climbing again and rolls his eyes. “What - ? Stiles, stop being weird.”
“I am the least weird person in this room today.” His voice is getting farther away, and Scott hears the front door open. “Which is saying something.”
“Goodnight, Stiles.”
Stiles might be smiling, and relief courses through his veins. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
*
It’s not awkward, exactly, but Isaac still hasn’t looked at Scott; he waits until Scott’s safely in his room without incident, and then heads to the one Scott’s mother set up for him a week ago, across the hall. He closes the door.
Whatever he’s feeling, he’s tamping it down, muddying it up until Scott can’t sniff the individual emotions out and Scott - Scott doesn’t know what to make of it, but it wouldn’t be the first time.
Maybe he’s bemused about Scott’s voice and why it does that around him, because Scott sure as shit doesn’t know why, either. Scott can’t explain it, or the pull he gets in his gut when it happens, and it’s - not anything he’s felt before, but it’s sort of like it’s always been there -
Isaac rustles around in his room, and he’s filled with a sudden burst of one clear emotion: decisiveness.
Scott digs around for a shirt - the new one they put on him still has bits of dried blood from the healing wound - and he doesn’t notice Isaac’s left his room until he hears a quiet, "Hey."
Isaac stares at him from the doorway, fingers picking at his sleeves; his chest rises and falls erratically. Scott frowns at him, steps away from his dresser.
“What is it?”
Isaac lifts his hand, gnaws anxiously at his thumbnail. He’s not hiding anything anymore, but there’s too many moods to sift through, too many thoughts: they’re racing, he’s racing, mind jittery and spasmodic - all Scott can grasp at is an undercurrent of resoluteness.
He laughs uneasily, and the shirt in his fingers drops to the floor. "What’s wrong?"
Isaac crosses the room in three long strides, gets his hands on Scott's jaw, crowds in and walks them forward until Scott’s back hits the wall. Scott’s too surprised to do anything, just lets himself go, yielding, eyes wide.
"Isaac - ”
"I'm gonna kiss you," Isaac tells him, and Scott makes a noise of surprise, or maybe - maybe it's a whimper. Their foreheads knock together and Isaac's mouth is a whisperdistance away. "I'm going to kiss you, okay? And if you want me to stop, just say the word."
"Isaac," his hands are reaching up, folding over Isaac's forearms, and he watches Isaac watch him. Say the word and Scott - Scott stays silent. Isaac nods - a minute twitch, a confirmation - and he leans in bit by bit; Scott can feel the heat of his breath, the irregular beat of his heart, an erratic tick of pleasepleasepleaseletme-
Scott shuts his eyes and murmurs, "Don't."
Isaac shifts just as easily, rolls his forehead until it's resting at Scott's temple. He doesn't move forward and he doesn't pull away and Scott's not sure which matters more.
"You could've died," Isaac tells him, frustrated. "Do you even - I - "
"It's my fault," Scott says; his grip tightens over Isaac's forearms and he's afraid to open his eyes for what he might see staring back at him. "Derek -"
"You did what you could, you tried to help - "
"I killed him," Scott runs over his sentence, and he's so tired still, hyped from his body running on overdrive trying to heal him. "He was trying to save his pack, he was trying to be better - we're all trying to be better, and I killed him -"
Isaac shoves him with his hands still on his jaw; Scott's breath punches out of him, and it shakes him enough to snap out of it.
"Shut up, McCall," Isaac's laughing mirthlessly, dropping a hand to hold Scott's waist. "Can you just - you didn't do it. I saw, remember? You swiped Ennis and he didn't let go. You can't blame yourself for that."
Scott won’t look at him and Isaac digs his fingers into Scott’s waist. “You can’t keep falling on your own sword and expect to get right back up.”
Scott blinks, looks at him sharply. “What?”
“You’re taking the blame for something that’s not your fault, for something that’s never been your fault and I get it, that’s the fucked up thing - I get it, but - Jesus Christ, I - only you would take self-sacrifice so literally.” His mouth flattens to a thin line and he shoves again, not hard enough to do anything but keep Scott in place. “You can’t fucking die, asshole.”
“I’m sorry,” Scott tells him softly.
“Don’t apologize,” he sounds like he’s pleading, now. “Do you even realize what we’d do if you were gone? Do you seriously not know the kind of faith people have in you - if you’re not here everything’ll just - go to shit.”
“You shouldn’t,” he tips his head back to the wall, throat bared and eyes raised to the ceiling. “You shouldn’t have faith in me, I can’t fix any of this. I try - all I do is try and nothing ever works. Someone always has to die.”
“But we’ll figure it out. We will. Stilinski and Lydia they’re - they’re close, they have so much information and - and we have Allison on our side and Deaton - Deaton won’t hang us out to dry, he can’t.”
Scott turns his face into the crook of Isaac’s neck now and he exhales shaky, dry, exhausted. Isaac’s mouth is at his ear and he says fiercely, “We’ll find Derek. I swear, we’ll find him. Alive.”
Bewilderingly, Isaac is the one comforting him, when it’s Isaac’s pack member, Isaac’s alpha - and that says more than Scott can even begin to comprehend at the moment. Instead, he asks, “Why did you beat the shit out of Ethan?”
He shifts, and Scott can tell Isaac is studying him.
“He hurt you. Also he’s a dick.” There’s a pause, and Isaac sighs; lips brush against Scott’s temple. “Stiles said you weren’t healing, and it was from the fight and I - I thought you were gonna die. I wanted him to feel that.”
“Your eyes.”
“What about ‘em?”
“They weren’t yellow. They weren’t - usually, when I pull you back it’s because you’re about to wolf out or something, but that wasn’t -”
He stops and Isaac murmurs in agreement: “Yeah, that was just me.”
“Why?”
Isaac volleys, “Why do you pull me back?”
“I don’t know -”
“I don’t either, but you know it works so why do you do it?”
“Because I care about you,” Scott answers. “I told you before, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Yeah, well,” Isaac exhales loudly, chest pushing against Scott’s. “Ditto.”
Scott licks his bottom lip. “Is that why you wanna kiss me, too?”
The question comes out quiet, careful, and Isaac waits a beat and then laughs. “No, that’s. That explanation’s a lot - um. Easier.”
“Yeah?”
His hand sweeps up Scott’s side, along the wound. “Can I try it again?”
“How do you know I won’t say no?”
“I don’t; you can. You can say no anytime you want,” he’s whispering, sliding his lips along Scott’s jaw. He stops at the corner of Scott’s mouth, nearly there, and he waits.
Scott says, “Stop beating people up for me.”
Isaac smirks. “I can’t guarantee that.”
And Scott - Scott laughs, easy like an exhale, and he lifts his chin a touch, feels the first brush of it, this sweet drag that makes his chest hitch; his mouth parts and
Isaac kisses him and it's soft, barely there, a pursing of mouths and a slow separation before Isaac bumps their foreheads together again, gentle. His hand slides down Scott's chest and his arms fall to his side as he pulls away. Scott blinks his eyes open; Isaac’s staring at him, uncertain now that he’s actually gone through with it. He opens his mouth to speak, goes to say something - was that okay - and Scott pushes off the wall and crashes into him.
He gets his hands on Isaac’s hips, manhandles him towards the bed and Isaac’s hands drop to his jeans, unbuttons them and tugs the zipper down; Isaac’s legs hit the mattress and he falls back, crawls up on the bed on his elbows. Scott settles on top of him, and Isaac sneaks a hand under his shirt, gently inspecting.
His knuckles knock against healed skin and he asks, “Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore, no.” Scott straightens, strips his shirt up and over his head deftly before throwing it towards the wall and leaning back in. Isaac follows the line of his chest, palms the tattoo on Scott’s bicep and looks up at him like he needs the reassurance.
Scott’s mouth is dropped open and he’s breathless when he says, “What’re you waiting for?”
Isaac half-smiles, pushes himself up and pulls off his sweater - shirt still on, underneath. He jerks Scott down with a hand at the nape his neck and turns him onto his side, slides off the bed to rid himself of his jeans, next. Scott lies on his back and Isaac’s right there in the next moment, swooping in, kissing Scott like he’s craving it. He’s shivering, touching shaking hands to Scott’s jaw and Scott presses a hand to his chest and pushes away, tender, to see what’s wrong.
Isaac’s eyes flash gold and Scott palms his cheeks, his neck, his waist. "Hey, no, stay here. ...Isaac," he tilts his chin up and catches Isaac's mouth again; Scott’s voice has that timbre of something more and Isaac gradually stops trembling, breathes out heavy and tired as he rests against the center of Scott’s chest. His hand curves around the base of Scott's throat - not threatening, just listening, timing his pulse to match.
Isaac laughs - hushed, like it's a secret. "You're the only thing that can bring me back. You know? I tried everything else."
"Last resort," Scott jokes, and it falls flat. "I get it -"
But Isaac's shaking his head back and forth.
"Tried everything but you. Everything else is -" his free hand clenches into a fist at Scott's side, "sinking. You - you're - it's like drowning and coming up for air."
Isaac lifts his head, pushes himself up slowly, shifts them so they’re lying side by side; his palm sits warm at Scott’s waist - his heart’s wild, fluttering, the beat of it loud in Scott’s ears.
“I think you’re my anchor.”
Scott closes his eyes and a shiver runs up his spine.
“My dad used to be my anchor. My dad, and I - I didn’t want... I didn’t want the only thing that kept me human anymore to be something so empty and wrong.”
He grabs Scott’s jaw, and Scott opens his eyes - Isaac is unwavering. “Yours was never like that, was it?”
(It’s a picture book, a flip-through of the best thing Scott’s ever had: Allison walking into class, new and quiet and beautiful, Allison smiling, laughing, moaning, telling him she loved him, telling him she was breaking up with him, no such thing as fate.
No such thing as werewolves.
And maybe it’s painful now but he got to touch her kiss her love her - got to be hers, for a little while and that’s. That’s the part he holds on to.)
Scott swallows, shakes his head and reaches for Isaac’s wrist; Isaac licks his lips and smiles without showing his teeth.
“When we were first learning to control ourselves, me, Boyd and - Erica,” he stutters over her name, and grief holds on tight until Scott squeezes his wrist and brings him back to Earth. “Derek - Derek told me anchors didn’t have to be bad. They don’t have to feel like self-infliction. It’s - I just didn’t know.”
“Didn’t -” Scott's voice cracks, and he starts over: “Didn’t know what?”
Isaac has a hand on his jaw again, tilting it up. He smiles and Scott thinks he might feel it everywhere.
"Anchors don't always have to weigh you down."
Scott’s mouth picks up in the corners: he kisses Isaac’s nose - Isaac wrinkles it, after.
He says c’mere, and Scott goes.
*
There's a moment, between the fumbling and the quiet laughter trailing into moans and the shedding of clothes like armor where Scott’s hesitates as he kneels between Isaac’s legs and he says, "I've - I've never - with -"
"Neither have I," Isaac says and okay.
Okay. It's a first Scott never expected to cross off his list but he -
He wants it.
His hands are shaking, this time, when he stretches over the side of the bed to dig through his bedside table drawer, because the last time he'd done this the body underneath him was gentle, pliant - wholly human and -
And truth is, aside from that one time mistake-kisstake with Lydia, Scott's never been with anyone but Allison and right now he just - he doesn’t want to compare them. They don't deserve it, and he has no right to list their attributes like pros and cons. They mean more than that.
See - he loves Allison. He never stopped. With Isaac - he's not sure, but it’s vaguely familiar, something that was always teetering on the edge of awareness. Now that it’s here he’s sort of wondering why it took so damn long.
"Scott?"
Scott shakes himself out of his stupor, moves back onto the bed and drops a bottle and a condom packet next to them. Isaac drags a hand down his neck, thumb resting above the jut of his clavicle. "Hey. Scott."
It’s scary, though. And he doesn’t want to overthink this, doesn’t want to psych himself out or back away. (Because where do you draw the line? Is it an actual, concrete feeling, something he can latch onto - or is Isaac so desperate for an alpha he can trust that he's confusing it for something more?)
He kisses Isaac swiftly, settles on top of him and buries a hand in his hair but Isaac breaks away, murmurs with his mouth brushing along Scott's shoulder, "This has nothing to do with the pack, or who my alpha is, this isn't - this has nothing to do with what we become, alright -"
“Stop.” Scott shoves Isaac's legs further apart with his knees.
"This is just me,” he’s almost-babbling, rushing to get it all out before he can regret it: “I’m not Allison and I don’t - I don’t want to be her, but that’s okay, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to - I can be different. Not better or worse just - different.”
“Isaac.”
He inhales heavy, tilts his head to catch Scott’s eye. “What?”
Scott leans down and kisses him, just once.
“I don’t want you to be her, either.” Scott grimaces, and sits up, says thickly, “I’d die for you like I’d die for her, or Stiles, or my mom and it’s - maybe it isn’t pack, but it’s something. So. Whatever. I’m not going to fight it when it - when it -”
He lifts his shoulders, and it’s not defeat, and it’s not reluctant - he’s not going to fight it when it’s so simple, really:
“You make me happy.”
Scott looks down at him and Isaac - Isaac mouth quirks briefly, and then purposefully, until Scott smiles small back at him. Isaac’s grin turns smirking and his legs tighten around Scott’s thighs and Scott's struck by this: Isaac is long planes and hard muscles, broader, taller, and maybe he's not as strong as Scott, but he can hold Scott down, if he wants. Can pin Scott's arms to the bed and hold him there and it's - hot, exhilarating - it's so fucking new -
He catches Isaac's expression - soft, happy, and Scott forgets to breathe.
He says, "Hi," and his voice barely hits a murmur. Isaac bares a quick smile and his fingers drift down the line of Scott's throat, stop just above his heart (thumping wildly because he doesn’t want to control it - who cares, let Isaac feel it).
Scott wants to kiss him again, so he does: they separate with a pursing sound, and Isaac's hand finds a home in his hair. His other grabs Scott firm around the chin and Scott opens up the second he can, licks lazily into Isaac's mouth. Isaac hums, pecks him and says, “Forgot -” He glances over Scott’s shoulder at the bedroom door, still wide open. “When’s your mom getting home tonight?”
“Night shift, she’s gone ‘til tomorrow.”
Isaac smiles, knocks his knee into Scott’s side, and Scott’s calmer than he’s been in weeks, like this. It’s almost like he has a normal life, like he’s not going to wake up with a missing dead friend and an alpha pack still out for blood -
Isaac nips at his mouth, a gentle rebuke for the way his worry spikes the room.
“Good,” he says, determined to hold them in this bubble for just a few more hours. “So we have time, then.”
Scott drops his hand to Isaac’s propped up leg, drags a palm over his knee, his thigh, the bare skin of his hip. “Time - not really familiar with that concept,” he mumbles. “Remind me again what it’s like?”
Isaac laughs, just a puff of breath against Scott’s mouth. “Yeah, I can do that.”
He cranes his neck to press his mouth to Scott’s once more, swipe a thumb across his cheekbone, and Scott doesn’t know what’s going to happen come morning, but he has tonight, he has now, and it - it’s more than enough.
(It’s everything.)