Archive of Our Own ^beta

Scott's in the middle of a grocery store when Stiles calls him from New York and tells him he has the Best Idea Ever.

"The last time you said that I ended up getting glitter in places no person should ever have glitter, dude," Scott reminds him, leaning heavily on his shopping cart, one foot on the lower basket as he lazily hops along down the aisle. "Those drag queens party hard."

"I've given you a lifetime of cool stories to tell at your orientation next month, shut up," Stiles tells him, and Scott's chest does this thing where it tightens until it hurts, almost, and he forgets sometimes, that Stiles is on the other end of the country instead of a bike ride away.

"Miss you, bro."

"Stop it," Stiles says, but he sounds sorta sad, too. "I miss you too, duh."

Scott switches his phone to his other ear, stops the cart to study the cereal section. He grabs the Cap'n Crunch for Isaac, that health nut granola cereal for his mom and Stiles says, "Allison says hi, by the way."

"She's there with you? Hi Allison!" he shouts into his phone, and he hears her laugh through the speaker.

"Yeah, we're doing lunch," Stiles says, like the very idea perturbs him. Then: "She's trying to turn me into her male version of Lydia and I don't appreciate it, which is partly why Lydia is also coming with you. And Danny. It'll be a pack reunion."

"And Isaac?" Scott asks. Stiles snorts.

"No shit, Isaac," he snarks, and really -

"You're my number one best-friend-slash-brother Stiles," Scott dutifully reminds him.

"Look, I got over that awkward jealousy phase a year ago, it's cool, we're not ten, you can have another boy best friend."

"He told me my bed still smells like you."

"Why is he in your bed?"

"I don't - uh. Shut up," Scott kicks the edge of his cart and pretends it's Stiles' shin. "I don't know, tell me your stupid plan, Stiles."

"Well, I've been making calls and stuff, y'know, very important things - as the pack emissary in training it's my job to like, facilitate a better understanding of where we belong in the supernatural world -"

"Stiles, it's sorta hard to be the secret pack emissary if you keep telling everyone you're the secret pack emissary -"

"- Basically it's like a monster mash road trip - ow!" There's a pause. "Okay, Argent said it's mean to lump everyone in the monster category, sorry."

Scott leans his weight on the cart until the front end tips up. "Monster mash road trip? Elaborate?"

"Well. I figure since most of us are in different places now, we should have a connection to all the weird shit that happens that regular people don't know about, yeah? So, I've been calling around - asked Deaton for help too - and I set up, like. Creature meetings. I'm hammering all the details out, but you four can come visit us in New York and hit a few places in between to -"

"Facilitate a better understanding of where we belong in the supernatural world," Scott finishes. "Right. Creature meetings as in?"

"Sacred fairy land in Michigan. Another pack in Chicago. Vampires. Sasquatch -"

"Sasquatch," Scott repeats, as Isaac rounds the corner of the aisle, neck craning to peer down it. He smiles when he sees Scott - he's got a carton of eggs in one hand and a gallon of milk in the other and he sets them in the cart carefully. He gives Scott a questioning, “Sasquatch?" and Stiles says,

"Yes, Sasquatch! Seriously, they're all totally into meeting you. First true Alpha to come around in like sixty years or whatever, and you're not even eighteen yet? You're a hot commodity, dude."

Isaac's eyebrows jump in amusement at that, and he lifts the box of Cap'n Crunch out of the cart to study it as he clearly tries not to laugh; Scott jerks the cart at him, and he snorts and side steps out of the way.

"Okay," Scott says. Isaac's pulling faces in the middle of the aisle, gesturing lewdly with his cereal box moaning Ooh, hot commodity, Scott, are you an' Bigfoot gonna get it on -

Scott throws a box of Pop Tarts at him, and Isaac catches it easily - Hello, I have neat werewolf reaction times, too, asshole, he’s telling Scott, with his eyes - and Scott hisses, "I'll bite you and the mark won't go away for days, Lahey -"

Isaac fumbles the cereal and the Pop Tarts onto the floor and says, "Um."

"Scott, please stop your awkward mating ritual for two seconds -"

"Shut up, dude," Scott says, the same time Isaac reaches down to pick up the dropped boxes. He throws them back in the cart, rubs at the nape of his neck sheepishly. He's biting his lip and Scott belatedly focuses in on Stiles' one-sided conversation:

"- if you leave at the start of September, you'll have like, three weeks to get here and back home before school starts at UCSD. It's totally doable."

Scott shrugnods at Isaac - This is a good idea, right? - and Isaac's cheeks are tinged red when he gives a small thumbs up in response. Now they have to get Danny and Lydia on board, which really shouldn't be hard at all.

"Yeah, alright," Scott says. "Let's do it."

"Sweet! I'll make a private Google document, give you all the deets that way."

"Stiles, don't say 'deets.'"

"Whatever," Stiles says. "I gotta go, Allison wants to beat the lunch rush, apparently, which makes zero sense. This is brunch. I'm having brunch, Scott."

"Bye, Stiles," Scott says, grinning. "Love you."

"Yeah, yeah, I love you, too. I'll see you in month."

"Later," Scott says, and hangs up. He's stuffing his phone in his pocket when Isaac steps up onto the front end of the cart, looming over the basket as Scott holds down his end so it doesn't tip over.

"Didn't realize people could still be codependent even when on opposite ends of the country."

"I'm going to put your cereal back and you won't have anything to eat for breakfast," Scott says, a half-hearted threat at best, and Isaac hops off the cart and smiles.

"Road trip, huh?"

"I think it'll be interesting."

"Yeah, I'll be trapped in a car with Lydia Martin for three weeks. Interesting is definitely a word for it."

"You'll be trapped in a car with me for three weeks, too," Scott points out, and Isaac scrubs a hand through his hair and glances away.

"That," his pulse stutters, and Scott's mouth lifts at one end, "that one I don't actually mind."

"Oh."

Isaac makes a noncommittal noise, and frowns down at the cart. "Are you really gonna put the Cap'n Crunch back?"

"No, God," Scott tugs the cart away from him again, turns it to heads towards the checkout and Isaac beams. "You're a pain in my ass."

"No," Isaac says, crooking an arm around Scott's neck. "You love me, McCall. C’mon, say it."

Scott bares his teeth in a mock growl, and Isaac laughs.

*

Lydia stretches out on her bed, lifts her legs until her feet are resting on the headboard, crossed at the ankles. She switches ears, barely catches Allison saying, “I can't believe you agreed to ride in a car with them across the country.”

Lydia holds her free hand out to check for chips in the polish. “Ask yourself this, Al: do you trust them to get to New York unharmed without me?”

“Not in the least,” Allison answers, and Lydia’s lips pull into a smile.

“They clearly need a babysitter. I’m taking one for the team, and am considering this my first step to sainthood.”

Her pinky could probably use another layer; she turns on her stomach, reaches for the polish and Allison says, “Saint Lydia. Nice ring to it.”

Lydia laughs, sets the phone down in front of her and taps the speaker buttom. She unscrews the nail polish, swirls the little brush to get rid of excess paint. “Besides, it’s like a front row pass to the Painfully Obtuse Boys Show. Can’t wait to watch Scott pretend he’s not staring at Isaac ninety-percent of the time any of us is speaking.”

There’s a sigh on the other line.

“Let them get there on their own, Lydia. We’ve all dealt with a lot since junior year.”

Lydia paints a careful stripe up her pinky, and then figures the rest of it could use a new coat anyway, and starts on the others. “The Hellmouth is closed, sweetie. Scott can’t use impending doom as an excuse to ignore his feelings anymore.”

“God, you sound like Stiles,” Allison tells her, and Lydia’s eyes narrow at the audacity. “This isn’t Buffy.”

“Isn't it?” She screws the cap back onto her polish, blows lightly on her fingernails. “A transcontinental bonding session with the supernatural creatures of America. Sort of like Buffy, only on wheels and no one is dying. Werewolves, road trips, and unresolved sexual tension, oh my - God, I found the perfect shade of nail polish, Al.”

“What’s the name?”

Lydia tips the polish upside down to read it. Hah. “Wicked.”

“How apt,” Allison says lightly, and Lydia rolls onto her back again and smiles up at her ceiling.

“I know, right?”

*

Danny's already clued in when Scott calls him that night, after dinner with Melissa and after he and Isaac huddled up on Scott's bed for exactly three episodes of Breaking Bad on Isaac's laptop.

"Stiles told me - we can use my car," Danny says, and Scott sits with his back to the headboard, wiggles around to get comfortable. Isaac's curled up on his bed, head somewhere near his thigh, fingers running over the patterns of the blanket underneath him. He's breathing in that even way that Scott’s learned means he's trying not to knock out. "We can leave the first week of September."

Scott jabs at the spaces between Isaac's fingers, and Isaac buries a smile in the blanket, mumbles quiddit sleepily, and swats at him. Scott tells Danny, "Can your ride handle that, dude? It's a pretty long trip, not exactly a walk in the park for an old car."

"You'd be surprised with what my ride can handle, McCall," Danny teases, and Isaac makes a face that's half unnecessary tmi man wow and half haha sex jokes.

"You're twelve," Scott says, to Danny and Isaac both. Isaac flips him off, Danny laughs. "What about school?"

"Caltech runs on three terms, I start on the twenty-second. Think Lydia's is earlier, but not by much."

"I'll text her," Scott says, and pats at Isaac's shoulder until Isaac grumbles and drags his phone out from the pocket of his pajamas. He sets it down by his face, too tired to do anything but poke ineffectually at it, but he eventually manages to pull up Lydia's name and tap the little new message icon.

"Scott?"

Scott blinks, and looks away from Isaac. "Sorry, what?"

"Are you even listening," Danny sounds amused. "When does UCSD start?"

"Quarter system, the twenty-third."

Isaac snuffles, runs his face back and forth into the blanket. "Day after my birthday," he murmurs sadly, sleepdrunk and slurring. "Happy nineteenth birthday, Isaac, welcome to college."

"So, we've got like, three weeks to get there and back? We can totally do it. Stiles said he was gonna group e-mail us the ‘deets’ tomorrow.”

“I told him to stop saying that.” Isaac's phone vibrates with a text, and he swipes the screen and holds it up for Scott to read - Stanford convocation is the 17th, if necessary I’ll get a plane ticket home. “Lyd’s in, says she’ll fly back if we’re running behind.”

“Awesome,” Danny says. “So. Road trip. Three weeks in a car, pretty much.”

“Yeah.” Scott absently scratches Isaac’s hair back and watches him arch into the touch with a sigh, eyes closed. Scott smiles, and hears Danny tell him, “I’m sure you’re used to the lack of personal space with Lahey already though.”

“Yeah,” Scott intones, and flattens his hand at the nape of Isaac’s neck once he keys in on what Danny’s said. “Wait, what?”

“Nothing, Scott.” He really wishes they’d stop sounding like they’re ten seconds away from laughing at him all the time, it’s going to give him a complex. “Tell Isaac I said ‘hey.’”

“He’s not even next to me,” Scott lies, and Isaac lets out an amused little gust of breath through his nose, mouth lilting up at one end.

“Goodni-ight,” Danny singsongs, half-laughing, and Scott says without any sort of heat, “Bite me, Danny, go to sleep,” and hangs up.

He drops his phone onto his bedside table, grabs Isaac’s and does the same before reaching out to shut off the standing lamp. He shuffles until he’s lying down over the covers, and Isaac doesn’t move from his curled up spot on the bed, doesn’t open his eyes.

“I’m going to bed,” Scott says, and Isaac shrugs. Scott bites his lip. “You can stay here if you’re too tired to go to your room.”

Isaac’s room is across the hall, exactly three steps over. It is not a long trek. Isaac laughs again and reaches out until his knuckles bump against Scott’s side; Scott turns in towards him without bothering to grab a blanket to cover them with, buries his nose in a head of messy hair and registers Isaac’s mumbled, “Wasn’t plannin' on moving anyway.”

Which. Yeah. Is fine with Scott. It’s not like he didn’t do the exact same thing in Isaac’s room a couple days ago when they marathoned an entire season of New Girl in one day.

Scott can totally deal being in a car with him for three weeks, easy.

*

MONSTER MASH ROAD TRIP BASH
From: 《[email protected]》
To: Scott McCall 《[email protected]》, Allison Argent 《[email protected]》, Lydia Martin 《[email protected]》, Danny Mahealani 《[email protected]》, Isaac Lahey《[email protected]》
Date: Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 16:22

HELLO PACK :D

Allison is currently next to me, since I'm sleeping in the guest room of her BADASS MANHATTAN APARTMENT TWENTY MINUTES FROM THE BARNARD CAMPUS BECAUSE ALLISON IS ROLLING IN DOUGH until I can move into my dorm next week. She says hi and also "shut up, Stiles" which is RUDE because I made her pancakes this morning

RE: ROAD TRIP - Danny offered up his car (and seriously man can you PLEASE get a new e-mail address? Lax love? You sound like you're really into shitting your pants) and as you are probably already aware, Lydia is funding hotel stays along the way, because Lydia Martin is a sweet, beautiful angel with very strong lungs who only stays in four star rooms. Thank her by groveling at her feet. Or at least give her a freebie on the gas money, idk.

I've pasted my Thoroughly Planned Out Itinerary for the road trip at the bottom, and if you guys follow it pretty closely you should be in New York with more than enough time to make it back to the sweet, sunny land of California before all of your convocations.

ANY QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? CONCERNS? TEXT ME! SKYPE ME! SET UP A GOOGLE HANGOUT WITH ME AND ALLISON! FOR SOME REASON I MISS ALL OF YOU (mostly Scott) (sorry everyone else) (not really tho)

Have fun, don’t kill each other along the way, make out with whoever is closest to you because living in cramped quarters for three weeks is probably very conducive to resolving things that have gone ignored previously COUGH COUGH. Allison says to tell Lydia “send help I can’t take Stiles undiluted by Scott”, but Allison can eat me. And I hid her knives so she can’t wave them at me menacingly at me anymore so HAH

P.S. Ok NOW Allison says she loves you all and misses you and can’t wait to see you YAYYYY

(ﾉ●ヮ ●)ﾉ～『✧~*ROAD TRIP*~✧』

Love,
Stiles Stilinski, Totally Awesome Secret Pack Emissary
Allison Argent, Person Who Recently Found The Knives I Hid Behind the TV (Save Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

*

On September 5th, 2013 - two weeks after Scott turns eighteen and ten months to the day after his pack managed to snuff out the supernatural homing signal in Beacon Hills - Scott, Isaac, Lydia and Danny set off for New York at ass o'clock in the morning with a full tank of gas in Danny's prehistoric Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, their luggage stuffed in the back, and Stiles' printed out itinerary taped to the dash.

(Scott also has a brand new phone tucked in his jacket pocket, and a hundred dollars in cash from Melissa - a birthday present, and some spending money for the road trip. "You and Isaac won't be eating everything in sight while you're gone," she said when he tried to at least give her the money back. "It'd be used towards groceries for the month, anyway.")

"I'm only saying," Danny shrugs in the driver's seat, one hand on the wheel as they speed down the interstate. "I have a fake ID, I can buy a bottle. We should celebrate."

"Ten months," Lydia reminds him. "Not a year. Ten months. And what would we even celebrate?"

"We technically halted the previously-inevitable destruction of the entire West Coast?" Isaac drawls from next to Scott, elbow crooked and resting on the open window of the backseat. He's wearing knock off Ray-Bans Melissa bought him as an early birthday present, and he lifts one wary eyebrow in Scott's direction. "Yeah?"

"Technically," Scott allows, and Lydia scoffs and twists around to glare at them both.

"Technically, no one even knew it was us. Far as the human world is concerned, California had a few months of freak weather and a series of horrific animals attacks that stopped once it hit the holiday season."

"Homecoming sucked so hard last year," Scott sighs, and Isaac makes a noise of agreement because yeah, trying to get killed by Peter Hale like he was a real life version of The Master, only meaner and more prone to puns? Totally not fun at all. Scott couldn’t even return the suit he’d rented; it was easier to lose the deposit money than try to explain away claw marks and ash and bloodstains.

"Hey," Danny frowns. "Human, right here. Very much recovering from finding out that my closest group of friends are werewolves."

"I'm so sure you were shocked - if I recall, your exact words junior year were 'I realized something was up when Ethan kept growing fangs every time I touched his dick.'" Lydia rolls her eyes. Scott can't actually see her doing this, but Lydia Martin's eyerolls leave a very distinct ripple in the air. "And please don't lump me in with puppy breath and Sirius Black - banshee, Danny, I know you know how to say it."

Scott says, "That guy wasn't even a werewolf - and didn't he get killed by a curtain?" the same time Isaac mumbles, "Why'm I puppy breath?"

"Well, we should at least have a drink in honor of the fact that we made it to graduation without dying," Danny presses on, "and that we actually got to apply to schools that weren't Beacon Hills Community College, on account of the whole saving-the-town-from-evil thing."

Isaac nods. "Fair point. Not like me an' Scott can get drunk, but I'll take a shot of whatever you buy. Solidarity, or whatever."

"My man," Danny says, and lifts a fist behind his head so Isaac can bump it with his own. When Isaac sits back and looks at Scott, he grins - so wide it knocks his sunglasses up.

"Take one with me please?" he asks, and Scott smiles and nods.

"Yeah, okay."

Danny mutters he'll probably take one off you and Isaac fidgets in his seat and looks out the window. Scott narrows his eyes and says, "Fine."

Danny swerves the car. "Fine?"

"Fine. I'll take a shot off him."

Isaac's elbow slips off the edge of the window and he says, "Um?"

Danny's even more flustered than Isaac; good, Scott thinks. Serves him right. The pack's never been short on good-natured teasing, but when it's about Isaac and Scott they both always get so awkward afterward, so. Fine.

"I was - only kidding, McCall," Danny starts, and he even sounds a little apologetic as he meets Scott's eye in the rearview mirror.

"Um?" Isaac says again, voice cracking and high-pitched and Scott winces.

"I mean, if you want."

"I." Isaac stops, and his brows knit together. "I'm... yeah."

"Yeah?"

He nods, and goes back to looking out the window, an inscrutable expression on his face. Danny's watching Scott from the rearview mirror, and Scott sticks out his tongue. In response, Danny laughs. "Oh man. Three weeks of this."

"Three weeks," Lydia repeats, and Scott can't see, but he thinks she might be rubbing her hands together.

"Three weeks," Isaac follows softly, and Scott reaches out and nudges his side. Isaac glances at him, questioning, and when Scott runs a crooked finger along his forearm, Isaac smiles with a gentle upturn to his lips.

They cross the state line into Oregon when Scott decides he wants to do the shot off Isaac’s neck.

*

From: Danny
(To: Allison, Lydia, Stiles)
Lol congratulate me I inadvertently threw down a backwards revenge gauntlet with Scott today that involves liquor

From: Stiles
Stop texting, you're driving. In layman's terms?

From: Lydia
He teased Isaac about Scott and now Scott's going to do a body shot off Isaac??? Logic.

From: Allison
GUYS WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT NOT MEDDLING

From: Danny
Your way is boring and filled with too many feelings Argent. My way has booze and probable licking and Stiles I'm texting in standstill traffic dipshit :(

From: Stiles
IM JUST CHECKING, YOU HAVE PRECIOUS SCOTT-SHAPED CARGO IN THERE YOU KNOW >:(

From: Allison
You really need to get a new boyfriend Danny all this free time of yours is manifesting itself in strange ways

From: Stiles
I'm on it

From: Danny
Guess that's what happens when your bf permanently morphs with his twin and runs away instead of helping you fight off angry demon-like monsters right before senior midterms. Or whatever. Nbd.

From: Danny
Wait what Stilinski

From: Stiles
That last one sent late!!!!!! Googling bars in Portland that don't card, will text info please send video

From: Allison
I want no part in this STOP MEDDLING sometimes ppl have to figure things out at their own speed :(

From: Stiles
Ok Degrassi go make an after school special about it

From: Allison
You're all awful people

From: Lydia
I can live with that

From: Stiles
Me too

From: Danny
Glad we had this talk :)

*

They enter Portland at seven at night, and are on their way to the first hotel stay of their trip - some place called The Nines, Scott looked it up before they left and tried not to freak when he saw the $329 a night price tag, but Lydia waved him away when he mentioned it, said something about how if she was being forced to road trip across America in the world’s oldest running car, then she was going to at least sleep in style. Scott texts Stiles they’ve arrived, and Stiles responds with a list of the nearest bars and then sends another text that says Give the phone to Lydia.

“Uh,” Scott extends his arm forward, holds the phone out for her to see; she reads the text and laughs - or. Cackles. Which isn’t really that comforting.

“Stiles found a bar. Several, actually,” she tells Danny, who snorts and switches on his blinker when Lydia’s GPS informs him to Turn. Right. On. Naito Parkway.

Isaac slides down in his seat so his legs are doubled up and mutters, “Can’t we buy a handle of something shitty and cheap and drink in the hotel.”

“Sweetheart.” Lydia says this like she means You adorably obtuse man-child, and Scott frowns on Isaac’s behalf. “The meeting isn’t even scheduled until tomorrow, I’m sure Bigfoot won’t mind if you’re hungover.”

“Can’t get hungover -”

“Oh God, c’mon, Lahey,” Danny grins as he looks up into the rearview mirror. “First shot’s on me.”

“I thought it was on Isaac,” Lydia quips, and Isaac slumps further in his seat and shoots Scott a wounded animal sort of look. He swallows, and Scott’s eyes flick down to his throat and he says, “We don’t have to -”

“I want. To. Um.” Isaac straightens out and takes his sunglasses off from where they’ve been perched atop his head; he musses up his hair and gives a shrug. “Fuck it. We’ll unpack and head over.”

The car pulls to a stop in front of their hotel, and Danny turns in his seat with a smile and says, “Day one. You ready for an adventure?”

Scott smiles.

“Bring it on,” he says.

*

From: Stiles
Heard about the body shots hope u scrubbed ur body extra hard in the shower this morning xoxo

From: Isaac
Step on a thousand upturned Legos barefoot, Stilinski.

*

The bar's only a fifteen minute walk from The Nines, and when eleven o'clock rolls around, Lydia and Danny are a few beers in and Scott is sitting next to Isaac in their little booth in the corner, quietly cursing his inability to hold any kind of buzz. The warm, blurred-around-the-edges feeling would be kinda nice right now as opposed to him, like, burying his face against Isaac's shoulder to hide the flush that's creeping up on him quick.

For his part, Isaac's smiling a bit, shaking his head as he leans into their rounded table. "Aren't we supposed to wait ‘til college to make ridiculous decisions while drinking?"

Danny shrugs. "So you have a leg up on the rest of your UCSD graduating class, Lahey." He squints in Scott's direction. "Bar one."

Scott - okay, Scott curls his hand over Isaac's shoulder and does hide his face there with a light, flustered laugh, turned in so all he sees is the back of the booth.

"You want to?" he murmurs, low enough that Lydia and Danny won't hear over the noise of the bar but perfectly audible to Isaac's sensitive ears; there's this snick like Isaac's swallowed hard and he angles in so his nose brushes along Scott's cheek. He nods - a tiny inclination, barely noticeable if Scott weren't waiting for it.

Scott nuzzles his shoulder for another beat, hums something quiet and pleased and then picks his head up. Lydia's smirking, tapping her nails to Scott's already-filled shot glass. Danny is holding his iPhone to his mouth in that suspicious way where Scott suspects he'll be sending Stiles and Allison a video at a later date.

Scott pulls a face, and focuses on Isaac. Well, on his neck. It's a nice neck. Long and - and unblemished. And - graceful. That's the word. Graceful and pretty. He's wearing a soft-looking sweater with a scoop neck, the juts of his clavicle peeking out, and Scott's eyes flick from his Adam's apple to his jaw - he’s clenching his teeth, and Scott lifts his hand off Isaac's shoulder to touch the muscle jumping there.

Isaac does glance at him then, and Scott tries to smile encouragingly - no big deal, what's a neck lick between friends? - but Isaac makes a sound in his throat and closes his eyes. His jaw relaxes though and, after another moment, he sits back, tips his head far to the side so Scott has a clear path.

Scott ducks in, mouth parting, and he falters at the curve of Isaac’s shoulder, the underside of his jaw, his collarbone. Isaac murmurs, "What're you waiting for?" and Scott - Scott laughs again, a puff of air against Isaac's skin.

"Dunno where to start," he answers, dragging aside the neck of Isaac's sweater with one hand and curl his right into Isaac's hair, giving the tiniest pull until Isaac sighs and tilts his head even further, so all Scott sees is the line of his throat.

"Follow your heart," Danny says sagely, mostly joking and mostly drunk, and Scott snorts and doesn't bother responding.

His lips touch skin before his tongue does, and Isaac's back stiffens once more as Scott's licks a quick, efficient line along the dip of his shoulder and then sits back and shakes salt onto his mark. Isaac. Isaac isn’t breathing and Scott pokes his stomach, gets a gust of breath on Isaac’s end for the trouble.

His hand is fitted to Scott's hip under the table, inexplicably and without Scott realizing, and he digs his fingers in enough for Scott to stay close as he sets the salt shaker down and holds out his free hand for his shot. Lydia slides it his way and then dutifully leans over the table to feed Isaac one of the lime wedges begged off the bartender, and Isaac gives her a wary stare and then bites down to keep it in place. Danny holds up his phone in their direction.

"Ready?" Scott asks, and Isaac narrows his eyes. He's smiling a little too, though, so Scott grins right back. "'Kay, bottoms up, dude."

He dips his head again, licks a slow stripe along the juncture where Isaac's shoulder meets his neck, and Scott can't resist - he bites down gently, on skin and bone and tendon and he doesn't miss Isaac's sharp inhale. There's flecks of salt along his collarbone, Scott can taste them, so he slides a hand across the skin peeking out from the scoop neckline until his fingers tuck under the material, follows up the line of Isaac's pulse point. The tattooed beat of it under Scott's tongue - throbbing hard, fast - makes Scott sway in and inhale, nose buried. It's when he lets his bottom teeth scrape a trail in their wake that he feels a piercing sting at his hip.

The jolt of painpleasure makes him pull away, and he's staring at the wet patch of skin along Isaac's neck, then belatedly remembers Right, tequila. He tosses back the shot, slams it down on their table, and Isaac's straightening his neck again when Scott reaches for him by his nape. He leans in, closes his mouth around the lime wedge and there's a moment, a millisecond, a tiny point in time where Scott closes his eyes and Isaac's eyelashes flutter and their lips brush and drag together in a not-quite kiss.

(Isaac shivers when Scott lets go; his eyes are still shut and he breathes in a very deliberate, even way that gives Scott the sense he is trying very, very hard to tamp down another unintentional reaction.)

Scott sucks on the lime wedge thoughtfully, head cocked, and when Isaac opens his eyes, it's to stare dead at him. Scott lets his line of sight trail aimlessly from Isaac's chest to his neck to his mouth and he lifts a shoulder and smiles with his teeth around his lime.

Danny coughs.

Isaac blinks rapidly, looks over at them and when Scott twists in his seat, Danny and Lydia are sat huddled in towards each other, chins on their hands.

"Well," Lydia says, and after a pause where her mouth obviously has not yet caught up with her brain, "Well."

"I wanna slow clap," Danny nods once. "Wave a lighter in the air. Volunteer myself as tribute for the next one."

Scott grins, pleased with himself, and stares at Isaac's neck again mostly to ignore the way Danny and Lydia incline their heads together to type conspiratorial messages to each other, since they've realized by now that whispering around him and Isaac is a moot point.

He says, "Sorry I slobbered on you," and he can smell a mix of his spit, the salt, the drink, and Isaac, and it isn't as gross a combination as it should be, probably. He fingers a still-damp patch of skin and Isaac doesn't shut his eyes at that but he does lift his chin, moving into the touch.

"It's cool," Isaac says, blasé, but Scott can sense this ache passes over him; Scott frowns and his thumb smooths over the bite mark, there because of his Alpha status, and something hot and needy spikes the air - he's not sure if it's from him or Isaac or the dozens of other patrons in the bar, honestly, but his breath comes in heavy anyway, the air weighed down in his lungs and another noise gets caught in Isaac’s throat -

This one a whine, almost, and Scott's pretty positive Lydia and Danny didn't hear it but Scott did and he swallows thickly, curls his fingers in so his bitten down nails catch on Isaac's skin. Isaac twitches, makes an aborted move to shift closer, and then does the opposite and slides along to the edge of their wraparound booth to stand.

"I'm," he runs his hands through his hair and coughs out a deprecating laugh. “Bathroom break."

"Okay," Scott says, and watches him disappear into the men's bathroom.

He's barely gone all of two minutes - Scott's nursing a new glass of Coke - when his hand claps Scott on the shoulder; he's jittery, biting his lip, and he says, "I need you to come to the bathroom with me."

The Coke dribbles out of Scott's mouth; he wipes it off with the sleeve of his plaid button down and laughs. "Dude?"

"Buy a guy dinner first, Lahey," Lydia says without looking up from her phone and there's a wrinkle gathering in Isaac's forehead but a smile pulls at his mouth anyway.

"No, shut up," he says, and then squeezes Scott's shoulder "Seriously. I - Bigfoot's in the bathroom."

"Bigfoot - ?"

"Is in the bathroom, yeah," Isaac finishes in a rush, and Danny snorts (Danny is so drunk and Scott is definitely going to blackmail him with something later tonight, he just has to figure out what).

"Lemme get this straight," he squints and points at Isaac. "You wanna show Scott your big feet in the bathroom?"

"Bigfoot, oh my God, why hasn't Lydia cut you off -"

"You know what they say about big feet," Danny stage-whispers to Lydia and Isaac's gone flush.

"Bigfoot," Scott says abruptly, over Isaac’s rebuttal. "Um. He's in the bathroom?"

"Yeah, he asked for you. Said he knew me from the descriptions Stiles gave him. He's British?"

"Stiles?"

"No, Bigfoot," Isaac says patiently, and aims a thumb behind him towards the bathrooms. "This is seriously the weirdest fucking thing ever, man. You comin'?"

"Uh, yeah," Scott slides out of the booth jerks his head in the direction of the bathroom for Lydia and Danny to follow. "Let's go."

They slide out of the booth, too, Danny a bit more wobbly than Lydia, and the four of them make their way to the restroom. Scott casts a surreptitious look around the bar, ushers the three of them in with a deep breath.

Isaac heads right over to the far corner of the room, going into a crouch and tapping tiles when Lydia says, "Scott, are you bleeding?"

"Probably not, Lydia," Scott says, but lifts his arms anyway to check; she's pointing at his left side and there is blood on his shirt. When Scott pulls at the hem of it to see it clearer, he counts four tears in the fabric. "What the hell?"

He's not bleeding anymore obviously, and there are no cuts under his skin, but there's definitely - uh -

"Claw marks!" Danny shouts, and then claps a hand over his mouth, scandalized. "Isaac, did you -"

"I am an eighteen year old boy," Isaac interrupts, pitch high. "Boy - werewolf - he was licking my neck!"

"Kinda hot," Scott murmurs, looping his finger through one of the rips, and the other three turn to stare. Scott shrugs jerkily and drops his hand. Priorities, Scott. Focus on the priorities. "Bigfoot. Bigfoot, he's here?"

"Yeah, he said," Isaac's rubbing a jaw, and taps a pattern out. "Left, center, right, center."

"Is this like a cheat code," Scott steps forward to watch, and Isaac is pushing the center tile when it sinks into the floor and slides away. One by one, the tiles fall apart and Isaac pushes into a stand and back away.

Lydia peers down. "This is ominous. Dark and ominous. I vote for more drinks and less scary underground cave things."

"Seconded," Danny says, and Scott smiles as cheerfully as he can.

"C'mon," he cajoles. There's a set of steps leading down. He takes out his phone, hits the little assisted light widget and flashes them all another bright grin. "Twenty-first century flashlights. You scared?"

Lydia flips a section of hair over her shoulder and smiles as she delicately kisses the pad of her middle finger in his direction. There’s a reason Lydia is his favorite, sometimes. After Stiles. And Isaac. And Allison. And Danny - okay, it's like a rotation.

Lydia takes the first cautious steps into the dark with her own phone held out in front of her. Someone at the bar says Gonna take a piss, be right back, and Scott nudges Isaac.

"Hey, you wanna wait up here with Danny?"

Isaac watches Lydia disappear, gives the underground hallway a onceover. "It'll be fine, I think. Can you, um - go in front of me?"

Scott nods, and takes an unsteady Danny under his arm; Isaac follows right behind, quick because he probably heard the same person Scott did, and the floor shifts back into place as the door to the restroom swings open.

“Are we going to Diagon Alley?” Danny asks, and Lydia’s laugh accompanies the sound of her heels clacking along wet concrete.

“Yer a human, Danny,” Isaac mumbles, and then sniffs the air. “I thought this would smell - worse. He smelled - not good. But this is like - uh. Potpourri?”

“Incense,” Lydia corrects, hands stretched out to her sides, skimming a few inches short of the brick walls around them. “It’s a good thing; maybe his place won’t even smell.”

They’re in some a tunnel, Scott thinks. It’s not as dark as the initial opening made it seem - it’s getting brighter the further along they go, actually. They reach a corner, and Lydia throws Scott a questioning glance over her shoulder.

He nods the go ahead, stumbles under Danny's clumsy walking and asks Isaac, “Are you sure it was Bigfoot, dude?”

“I think I know what Bigfoot looks like, Scott.”

Danny laughs, falls back to glomp onto Isaac instead. “Isn’t his whole deal that you don’t know what he looks like?”

Isaac sighs and lifts Danny up one-armed like a reprimand, sets him down so he's in front Isaac instead, except Danny pretends to swoon at Isaac’s manly form, oh my and Isaac ends up laughing instead of looking annoyed, which he wasn’t really doing a good job of in the first place.

“Scott!”

“What, I’m listening, I swear,” Scott turns to face Lydia; she’s pointing to a door, and Isaac and Danny move to the side so Scott can step forward to knock.

"Um. Mr. ...Bigfoot? Mr - Mr. Foot?” He makes a face at Isaac, who gives a nonplussed shrug in return. “Hi, I’m, uh. Scott McCall. You spoke to my Beta - ?”

“One moment!” There’s a shuffling sound, and then the door opens wide and, right, there’s Bigfoot. Smiling wide and when he waves a hand at them and mutters, “Well, come in, come in, haven’t got all the time in the world, do we?”

Scott shoots Isaac another bemused look, smiling, because seriously? He’s like Harry and the Hendersons meets Jeeves the butler.

“My boy,” Bigfoot throws an arm around Scott, and Scott’s hit with a wave definitely not potpourri. This is - well. It’s like waiting way too long to throw expired food out, and then spraying Febreze on the trash. It smelled like expired food before, but now it smells expired food and flowers. The only thing that stops him from dismantling Bigfoot’s hold on him is that fact that that would be very, very rude, and he’s almost positive Stiles talked him up when he set the meeting.

“I prefer Sasquatch.”

“Oh,” Scott’s eyes water, and his voice is tight as he tries to speak without inhaling and oh God, there’s a bug crawling on his shoulder. “So sorry."

Come to think of it, Stiles' itinerary did stress the whole Sasquatch thing. Come to think of it, Scott can’t really focus on anything right now except controlling his gag reflex.

“No worries,” he pats Scott’s shoulder and leads them into a den, lit by candles on the tables and torches propped up along the walls. “Just a bit sensitive, is all.”

Who knew the big guy had feelings?

"I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow, so I'm afraid I don't have much to offer at the moment; wouldn't have introduced myself to your Beta there if I hadn't recognized him from Mr. Stilinski's emails."

Lydia looks afraid to sit down, but Danny sprawls on an armchair that lifts a layer dust the second his body lands on it. "You get WiFi in caves?"

"About the only technology I do manage to get down here," Bigfoot - Sasquatch - says as he sits on a loveseat. He waves Scott and Isaac over. "Well, come on, make yourselves at home!"

Scott drops down next to Sasquatch, and Isaac sits next to him, and his hand twitches towards his nose with an abortive gesture. Good. Diplomacy, Isaac, Scott thinks at him. It's all about diplomacy.

"Well," Danny starts, sniffing a throw pillow in his lap. "You need to tell me who your carrier is, because I can't even get service aboveground -"

"Lydia, sit down," Scott says, cutting Danny off; Lydia gives the remaining seat a glance - an ottoman that looks about a hundred years old, and like it hasn't been washed in longer than that - and shakes her head.

"No, I - I like standing," she says, legs crossed at her ankles and hands clasped together. Her eyes are watering. "I love standing so much. I could stand forever."

Isaac whimpers as a beetle crawls over his knee.

Scott sighs.

This is going to be a long trip.

*

All things considered, Sasquatch is pretty chill. Turns out Mom-and-Popsquatch emigrated from England - "Our very own British Invasion, of sorts," he’d joked, and then picked a bug of unidentifiable nature off of Scott’s arm and ate it; they’d settled into the Oregon territory for decades, until Pop Sasquatch got poached (official records listed him as an “unusually large bear”). After that, he and his mother mostly kept to themselves because there wasn’t any sort of monster network set-up, and they never knew who to trust.

And then she died, too. So Sasquatch learned to fend for himself, how to navigate around an increasingly tech-savvy, higher quality world - only leaving his underground safe haven when he has meetings like the one they were supposed to go to tomorrow.

(“A human,” he cried dramatically, gesturing towards Danny with tears in his eyes. “In my home of his own volition and with no weapons of any sort. How times’ve changed. Wish mum n’dad were around to see it now.”)

He’s nice - smelly, but nice - and thanks them profusely when Scott finally takes pity on the way Lydia sorta looks like she’s getting light-headed from waiting as long as she can to inhale and makes an excuse to get back to their hotel. Says they’re welcome in Portland - in Oregon - any time, “There’s a quaint vegan café I’d love to take you to, next time you’re in the area. The toilets are to die for!”

There’s a back entrance to Sasquatch’s home that leads to a series of more underground tunnels; he gives them directions to the one that’ll take them to the back their hotel, and sure enough, fifteen minutes later, Scott’s pushing up a manhole cover in the dead of night and climbing up onto an empty street.

Danny’s next, with Isaac behind him to make sure he doesn’t fall, and then Scott ducks down to grab Lydia by the waist and pull her up in one swooping gesture. He tucks the manhole cover back into place, and watches Lydia stand stock-still in the middle of the street, eyes closed.

“Martin -” Isaac starts, and she holds out an index finger. She swallows heavily - Scott’s stomach is churning too, now that he’s being hit with fresh air again.

“Um.” Scott gives his limbs a general shake to knock off any critters, and glances at Isaac, who’s supporting Danny’s weight. They both look a shade past nauseous.

“Why was he in the bathroom anyway?”

“I thought he w - as,” Isaac gags, holds his fist to his mouth and closes his eyes. “I thought he had to go really bad. But he was chewing something wh - hen,” he retches, “he came out, oh God, he mentioned the toilets in that café - Scott, he was talking about vegan shit -”

Which is of course when Danny pukes in the street.

Scott covers his eyes, can’t see vomit or he’ll do it too, definitely, and he hears Isaac say weakly, “I’m... gonna... take him to their room. And then shower for thirty days.”

“Sound plan,” Scott says, voice tight, and Lydia hasn’t moved.

“Lydia, you okay?”

She inhales, sweeps a curled strand of hair off her neck. “I’m going to find an incinerator to burn my clothes in,” she says decidedly. “And then I’m going to Google if banshees can kill people with their thoughts, like the Force or something. And don’t tell Stiles I’ve seen Star Wars.”

“You can’t murder him,” Scott reminds her, over Danny’s feeble shout of Darth Martin!

“I will if this trip entails another locale in an underground shit cave.” She stamps her foot. “The potpourri was a lie!”

Scott goes to pinch the bridge of his nose, and stops before he can - he just. He really needs a shower. And to never touch anything remotely dirty ever again. “Go inside, Lydia.”

She marches past him, glaring over her shoulder, and says sharply, “He’s paying for my dry cleaning, Scott.”

“Fine,” Scott exhales, following her around to the front of the hotel; he pulls out his phone and sends a text to Stiles - Met Sasquatch tonight, went inside his home... cave thing. “But don’t kill him.”

SWEET, DUDE. How were the big man’s dibs???

Rank. Lydia’s said gonna kill you when we get to NY.

He grips his phone tight and follows Lydia to the front of the hotel. A shower for thirty days sounds really nice right about now. Another text comes in just as they step into the nearest elevator:

Well you can tell her, dear Scotty, that I appreciate her resolve.

Lydia murderously jabs their floor button.

Will we ALL wanna kill you when this is over bro? Confirm/deny

No comment :D

Scott does pinch the bridge of his nose then.

(It is going to be a very, very long trip.)

*

Stiles Stilinski (Google Drive) - Monster Mash Road Trip Bash Itinerary

[...]

Destination #2 - Seattle, WA.
ETA: 09/07/13
Travel time from Portland, OR: ~3hrs
Creature Meeting of the Day: MOTHER. FUCKIN’. NOSFERATU. BRO.
Where: Campus Corner Café, after sundown (his ~servant said to vait for him if he’s not there.. he vill show up ven he can... get it... GET IT??? HE’S A VAMPIRE.)

[...]

*

(“I thought Stiles was joking when he put that in - it’s not really Nosferatu, right?” Isaac asks as Lydia rattles off Stiles’ itinerary. “That’s not even a real person, right?”

“Ummm?” Scott says.

Isaac twists around from the driver’s side to glance at Danny, who’s in the backseat now, eyes wide. “Right?”

Danny gazes forlornly out the window.

“This is a road trip of death,” he says.)

*

Danny tells them as they cross the state line into Washington that Nosferatu doesn’t exist - that, actually, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens is a didn’t-manage-to-get-the-book-rights rip off of Dracula, with Count Orlok taking the lead role instead.

“But, like.” Danny’s watching the old film on YouTube as Isaac speeds along the Interstate. “Whatever, it’s considered one of the earliest cult films and was a major influence to the horror genre and cinema as a whole.”

“Scott,” Lydia says, shaking her head, and she kicks the back of the passenger seat Scott’s in. “Your best friend is trying to kill us.”

“He wouldn’t deliberately put us in danger, you know that right?”

“Yeah, Scott, we know,” Isaac says, and it’s testament to Isaac himself that it doesn’t sound placating. “It’s just like. Nosferatu, man. What the fuck? Wasn’t that German, anyway?”

“Yeah,” Danny’s just scrolling through his phone now, bored. “You know what the townsfolk called him in the movie?”

“‘Stiles Makes Bad Decisions And Should Be Kicked Out Of The Pack’?” Lydia suggests with a smile, teasing, and offers a kinder kick to Scott’s seat this time.

“Nah,” Danny shakes his head. “‘The Bird of Death.’”

“This road trip is so much fun,” Isaac announces to the car. “Boy, I hope I get a souvenir out of it, like a signed copy of the original film, or plastic fangs, or an aversion to sunlight.”

“You have fangs,” Danny points out blankly, and then lifts his head. “Hey, if one of you gets bit by a vampire will you turn into a half-breed or something?”

Lydia does spirit fingers. “Werevamp.”

Scott snorts. Isaac smiles and glances at Scott in his periphery. “Scott, you gonna protect me from a hundred year old fictional vamp?”

"You can take care of yourself," Scott tells him assuredly, and Isaac juts his chin out as he watches the road.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Look, I'll show you my neck once we leave, you can check me for bite marks. Or - maybe don't, actually. I kind of like the werevamp deal."

“Like a Spidey bite,” Danny says. “Gotta take the werevamp shit seriously, man. What’d Uncle Ben say? ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”

“He didn’t say that,” Scott and Isaac both tell Danny, and Isaac actually throws his head back and laughs.

“How cute,” Lydia notes, and Scott squints at her from through the little gap in the headrest.

Danny scoots forward as much as he can with his belt on, curls his hands over Isaac’s seat. “Wait, he didn’t?”

“It was in the comic panel, not a direct quote,” Isaac says, catching Scott’s eye, still laughing quietly, but when Scott keeps staring, soft smile in place, it trails off. He licks his lips, rests his elbow on the window and chews on a thumbnail and Scott’s overwhelmed, suddenly, with the need to tell him,

“I wouldn’t let anyone bite you if you didn’t want it.”

Isaac - with the remnants of a smile - doesn’t reply to that but he tilts his head more, bares the lean, strong line of his neck to Scott's view and he does that sometimes - a sign of deference to the leader; a subconscious, instinctual thing that's a better reminder of who Scott is more than the flash of red in his eyes. But now - now, Isaac's just thinking, head cocked as he hums along to the music playing quiet off the car radio, glancing at Scott and away. And Scott's not anything close to a vampire, but he doesn't think he'd mind sinking his teeth into the delicate skin there -

If Isaac wanted.

Um.

Scott shifts in his seat, clears his throat and focuses on a point in the distance that isn’t Isaac’s neck, or his mouth, or any part of him waiting to be marked up and tequila shots are awful, awful things.

*

From: Lydia
I swear you can cut the sexual tension in this car with a knife

From: Danny
Or a dick. Probably a dick.

*

They set up shop in the The W Seattle - two rooms on the fifteenth level with floor to ceiling windows - and on the seventh of September, they head out bright and early -

Or. Well. Dark and dreary, but whatever.

Campus Corner Café is a ten minute drive from their hotel, smack dab in the middle of the University District. The sun’s set by seven forty-five, and by eight, Lydia, Danny, Isaac and Scott are all huddled unsurely by the front door. They’ve already been greeted by helpful-if-slightly-confused staff half a dozen times, but Scott just keeps smiling, says they’re waiting for someone, it’s alright.

The place has dimmed lighting - by design or by supernatural forces fucking with halogen bulbs, Scott isn’t sure - and even though he and Isaac are scanning the café, sniffing at some vaguely disagreeable, unidentifiable scent lingering in the air, Danny is the one who spots him.

“Oh, man, there,” he starts to point, but Lydia pushes his hand down just as easily. “In the corner. With the cloak. God, the hair on my arm’s standing up,” he complains, and it’s such an distinctively human response to have - no fancy senses to speak of, gotta make do with heebie jeebies - that Scott almost smiles.

“I should have worn a turtleneck,” Lydia sighs; Scott can hear the tremor in her voice, even if she’s trying to hide it, and slides his hand into hers until it ebbs away. Lydia doesn’t say anything, but she does stand up on heeled tiptoe, rests her chin to his shoulder for a moment as a thank you, and holds his hand as they make their way to the back corner.

Nosferatu looks exactly like he did in the movie: long, bony fingers, pointy Spock ears, sharp fangs, clearly visible as he watches them sit down. (The four of them squeeze into one side of the booth, Isaac and Scott bookending Danny and Lydia like two werewolf protectors, just in case.)

“Hallo,” he croaks, and then takes a sip of something in the oversized tea cup front of him - steaming, and the color of blood. He notices Scott studying the drink with a wary, furrowed brow, and he bares his teeth in a smile.

It looks more raptorial than anything else.

“Do not worry,” he says slowly, voice a bit less scratchy. “It is not the blood of a human. My servant, Knock, is the manager here, and his father is a butcher.”

“Pig’s blood,” Danny blurts out, and when Nosferatu gives him a cursory look, Danny’s hands slowly inch up to cover his neck.

“Yes,” Nosferatu says, amused. “I will not bite you.”

“My neck’s just cold,” Danny mutters to the table.

“Um,” Scott scoots forward in his seat, leaning in front of Lydia. “So, I just - wanted to introduce myself.” He holds out a hand, and Nosferatu reaches out one gnarled, bony limb in response. “Scott McCall.”

“You reek of wolf,” Nosferatu informs him. He nods to Isaac. “That one, as well.”

“Yeah, we’re - um. This is my pack. Or, part of it.”

“Ah, yes, the Stilinski said as much. He and the hunter are occupied at university.”

“Right,” Scott says. “Hey, how come - I mean, how come no one’s - “

“Most humans only see what they want to see,” Nosferatu says cryptically, hunched over his drink. Then: “Also I have hypnotized them.”

“That works, too,” Isaac says.

Nosferatu nods, blinking overly wide eyes at them, fangs jutting out from his closed mouth, comically horrific. “I believe I am meant to give you a contact list?”

“Yeah - yes. Stiles said for a pack of vamps - vampires in Iowa? Apparently there’s a large cluster of them there, and it’s right on the way to our next stop. He’d only managed to get hold of their - uh. Their leader last week, so it’s a little last minute and - “

“No need to explain,” he tucks a hand into the inside of his cape, comes away with a neatly folded piece of paper that Scott takes. “Her name is Selene. She is the one to speak to.”

Nosferatu smiles again; Lydia shivers next to Scott and Danny grabs her hand. Isaac’s arms comes up and over and the pads of his fingers are pressed to Scott’s shoulder like a link. (Nosferatu’s not evil, Scott gets that, but it’s just. It’s a little unsettling.)

“It is very funny,” he explains in a monotone. “I may laugh, oh, it is very funny.”

Scott’s not sure how insulted he should feel. “What’s funny?”

Nosferatu shakes his head.

“No, no, you misinterpret - this is not a bad thing. The Stilinski I spoke to was human. As are you,” he points to Danny, and then Lydia: “That one - a wailing woman, no doubt. The other girl, a hunter - descendant of the terrifying Argent line. And you,” he gestures to Isaac and Scott. “Both wolves.” His eyes scrunch up and Scott thinks he might be trying to laugh.

“It is very peculiar. A turning point, perhaps. I should think there will be some who will resist it, but Selene understands the importance of growth.”

“Wait, is that whole vampire-werewolf feud an actual thing,” Isaac says with a bewildered glance at Scott, who lifts his shoulders. This is the first vampire he’s ever met. Scott’s not really disappointed by the experience or anything, it’d suck if he was supposed to hate them.

“Not in the way you think. You can scent us, I believe, just as I can you,” and right, that’s that weird smell he and Isaac’d picked up. It’s alright, if he doesn’t focus on it; now that Nosferatu’s mentioned it, it’s the slightest bit stronger and yeah, it’s not like, God-awful, but if he had a choice between being around it and not, he’d pick the latter. "It is somewhat unpleasant, if I am not mistaken. And though there have been instances of wolf shifters and vampires grouping together in the past, it is not common nor it is an opportunity most of us would accept."

“I really want to make a Twilight reference,” Danny says morosely. “But it’s 2013.”

“The ones coming of age are particularly dreadful sometimes, but Selene will keep them away from you,” and then, when Scott’s overcome with protective rage at the sudden thought of one of them murdering a member of his pack that his canines extend unwillingly, Nosferatu speaks rapidly:

“Oh, do not worry, Scott McCall! The days of vampires harming humans are long over - for those who care to keep on living in peace, that is. Vampires entering adulthood are... youthful,” he finishes, and it sounds like he’s putting it kindly. “It is an overwhelming sensation, those first few weeks after one turns eighteen. I find they tend to overcompensate in their bravado.”

“Stay away from teen vampires. Got it,” Isaac says with a nod, one Nosferatu returns with an unhurried bow of his head.

“That is the extent of our meeting, Scott McCall,” he says, and Isaac takes that as his cue to slide out; he still makes sure Danny and Lydia exit behind him. “I am sorry you traveled all this way for a scrap of paper; I was content to speak on the Google Mail with your Stilinski, but Knock is a paranoid sort, and insisted someone personally come fetch it.”

“No problem, dude,” Scott says easily, butt-hopping out of the booth to join the others, and then doubletakes - is it improper to call an ancient vampire dude? - but Nosferatu does laugh at that, wheezing and brittle, like his vocal chords aren’t used to the effort.

“Dude,” he repeats, voice filled with mirth. “Scott McCall. You will go far, young one.”

Scott grins like he can’t help himself. Nosferatu totally just called him a badass Alpha.

Stiles is gonna freak.

*

“‘You will go far, young one,’” Scott repeats that night, half hanging off his hotel bed, and then at Stiles’ awed man, he lifts his hands in the air. One of the benefits of attuned werewolf hearing has always been that all his phone calls can become hands free if he wants them to. “I fucking know, right!”

“That’s sick, bro,” Stiles whoops. “Oh, hey, I called the number you texted earlier - Selene said anytime within the next week would be fine, she knows the drive from Seattle is long. She sounded nice.”

“Yeah, Nosferatu said.”

Stiles snorts. “‘Nosferatu said.’ Alright, so does that mean I am forgiven for the underground lair thing? I didn’t know where he lived, I promise.”

“Yeah, I dunno,” Scott starts, just as Isaac comes out of the bathroom for the night; he’s got a plain tee on and pajama pants Melissa got him for Christmas last year - the one with little Snoopy and Woodstock’s all over them - and Scott can smell his toothpaste from here.

“Oh God, you trailed off. Is Lahey there?”

Isaac rolls his eyes and flops onto his bed, TV remote in hand.

“Shut up, Stiles,” Scott says with a smile. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“You are so annoying,” Stiles tells him. But he tells him in his Stiles Voice that means Scott isn’t annoying and Stiles loves him best. “When are you finally gonna - “ he cuts himself off, and exhaled noisy through the phone. “Go. Desert me for the half giant.”

“I’m six-one,” Isaac says, eyes on the wide screen in front of them. “I’m literally two inches taller than you, you dweeb.”

“Ace comeback there, Lahey,” Stiles says bitingly, and Isaac aims a middle finger at the phone with a smile. “Is he flipping me the bird? He’s flipping me the bird, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, because it’s a general rule of his life that he doesn’t lie to Stiles if he can help it. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Fine, I’ll just text Danny and bug him.”

“Bye, Stiles.”

“Later!” he calls, and Scott hits END.

“Do you miss him?” Isaac asks without looking at him, and Scott falls off his bed with a thump and climbs onto Isaac’s.

“Yeah, always,” he says, and sits cross-legged at the head of the bed, shoulder to shoulder. “You looking for a movie?”

“Lydia said it was cool.”

“Awesome.” He blinks, and yawns widely. “Nothing with werewolves or vampires in it, okay?”

“Boring human movie,” Isaac says on a laugh. “On it.”

*

They do what usually happens when they watch movies: Scott ends up stretched out like a starfish, Isaac curled up next to him, hair mussed, struggling to keep his eyes open, head propped up on some limb of Scott’s. It’s possibly one of Scott’s favorite things.

He just likes it - figures it has a lot to do with being around a pack member that’s got all the same supernatural wiring as him; he’s content when Isaac’s there, warm in a way he can’t explain. A little proud, too; the Isaac he met junior year would have never done this - but that’s what happens, Scott guesses, when you live with someone for two years.

The self-imposed boundaries Isaac had constructed when he first moved in broke down, little by little, until he stopped second-guessing everything he did, until he realized that Melissa wasn’t going to kick him out if he didn’t do every single thing around the house, until he could pass out on top of Scott after a Physics cram session and not wake up afterwards looking vaguely guilty saying Sorry, Scott, it won’t happen again -

(Did that until Scott told him one night, frustrated and desperate, “Dude, I don’t mind if it happens again,” and Isaac didn’t say anything after that, but he brought his pillow into Scott’s room the next time they needed to study for a Trig test, so Scott’s always counted it as a success.)

Isaac gave up a half hour ago on making it to the end of the movie, lies now with his cheek mashed into Scott’s shoulder; he consistently dozes off in Scott’s space, and Scott’s not sure he ever minded, really. He can’t even bother to move to his own hotel bed - Isaac’s soft, and drifting into the weightlessness of sleep together seems like a damn good idea right now.

Isaac snuffles, smacks his lips and curls a loose hand into the chest of Scott’s threadbare shirt, and Scott draws the pad of his index finger light down the slope of his nose; Isaac wrinkles it in response and smiles muted and sleepy, already halfway to dreamland.

“Go’t’sleep,” he slurs, and Scott huffs out a laugh.

He thinks he could stay here awhile.

*

The drive to Iowa City is a long one - twenty-seven hours - and Scott and Isaac’s higher tolerance for driving across states without breaks means they get thirteen and a half hour shifts each behind the wheel. It’s a bit grueling, maybe, but they leave Seattle at the crack of dawn and when they see the first Welcome to Iowa! sign, it’s midday on the ninth. They go the traveling businessman route with the hotel this time around; Lydia pays for a place none of them have ever heard of, looks around at the generic bedspread and neutral-colored walls disappointingly. It’s definitely got less flair than the others, but Scott likes to think it has character.

Doesn’t matter, anyway - they all pass out once they set their bags down, the four of them curled up on the two full beds in Lydia and Danny’s room, Scott and Isaac both too lazy to make the short trek four doors over to theirs. They wake up eventually, late evening, with grumbling stomachs and sleep-crusted eyes; it takes them the rest of the night to recuperate properly, and the next morning they set off for the vamp headquarters.

It’s a house, really; a two-story twenty minutes away from the hotel and on the edge of the city limits in a town quieter than anyplace Scott’s used to back home. The door is answered by a tranquil woman, completely unsurprised to see them, and Scott catches a faint whiff of that displeasing scent he’d gotten around Nosferatu.

“Hello,” she says, and she’s a little pale, sure, but it’s not that noticeable. She’s not translucent or hypnotizingly beautiful or has features just this side of cruel. She gives him kindergarten teacher vibes.

Scott decides he likes her.

“Hi. I’m - ”

“I know who you are,” she interrupts with a smile. “I’m Selene. Welcome.”

*

There’s not a single vampire in the house aside from Selene - no living, breathing person of any kind; Scott’s ears are on high alert, trying to catch a sound of something, anything, as Selene leads them through the entranceway and into the living room - a footstep in the next room, a whispered conversation upstairs, but it’s dead silent.

Danny keeps to the side, just out of view, hand clasped around Lydia’s wrist, and Isaac touches Scott’s shoulder, leans down to murmur, “Can you hear anyone?”

“They’re all gone.” Selene’s watching them, and she smiles and taps her nose, points to Isaac and Scott in the same movement. “Thought it’d be a bit overwhelming.” She gestures towards the sofas - a three-cushion that Selene, Scott and Isaac take, a loveseat that Lydia perches on, and a comfy recliner that Danny drops into, shoulders hunched as his eyes sweep over the room.

(He’s agitated, like he was with Nosferatu.)

“Oh,” Scott shifts in his seat, uncomfortable at the thought of making everyone in the house leave, just for them. There’s got to be a half dozen rooms in this place - he can’t imagine it being empty most days. “Sorry, I didn’t - we can meet somewhere else if they want -”

”Was told you’d say that,” Selene says. “By your other pack member. But it’s fine, really. Most of them were just being nosy. Wanted to see the wolfboy Alpha and his mishmash pack. Would you like to step outside?”

She directs this to Danny, whose gnawing on a thumbnail with a very particular sort of fervor; he drops his hand when he realizes she’s talking to him, eyes skittering nervously.

“The hairs on the back of my neck won’t go down,” he offers, apologetic, but Selene just tilts her head.

“It’s alright - humans never seem to like us very much, I just hadn’t anticipated it’d still be a problem even if they weren’t in the house - there’s a porch swing, outside. You’re welcome to wait out there.”

Danny smiles briefly, and Isaac rises with him, crossing past the coffee table in the center to sling an arm around Danny’s shoulder. “I’ll keep you company,” he says, aiming for light, and Danny relaxes a bit more.

“I’ll come with,” Lydia stands, too, brushes Scott off when he tries to reach for her, concerned. “I’m fine, seriously. You’re the one’s in charge here, so it’s probably best you both just,” she waves a hand. “Talk amongst yourselves.”

Selene grabs her by the wrist gently when she passes, holds her in place for a moment. “If you see my youngest - Will - don’t bite.”

A confused laugh spills out, and Lydia’s brow wrinkles. “That’s not really my specialty?”

“I just mean don’t let him rile you up. I told him to stay away - he’s supposed to be at his cousin’s for the day - but lately he’s taken to not listening to anything I say. Come find me, if he finds you.”

Isaac and Danny are waiting by the door; Lydia asks, “What does he look like?”

“Oh, you’ll know him when you see him,” Selene says, with all the wryness of a parent.

When the front door finally closes behind them, Selene smiles warmly at Scott. “I’m very excited to talk with you.”

”Stiles said - he said a lot of people wanted to meet me but - why?”

“Your pack, mostly. It’s a new concept, isn’t it? Monsters and humans working together, all secrets out in the open.” She makes an amused sound. “And one of yours is an Argent, too -”

“She isn’t - I mean, she is, but Allison and her dad don’t do that anymore. Sort of.”

“Yeah, I think I caught wind about a change of Code? We protect those who cannot protect themselves.” She smiles again, sweet, nothing like Nosferatu’s alarming mouth stretched too-wide to instill anything but unease. “It’s a noble cause.”

Scott sits up a little prouder for Allison’s benefit. “I thought so, too.”

“And I know what your pack did, last year,” Selene continues, fingers fiddling with a bracelet on her wrist. “With your beacon. So young, all of you, but you destroyed it, rerouted the very currents that created it.”

(That was mostly Stiles, who figured that out. Scott thinks he’s a little magic, truth be told, but Stiles is pretty set on being a human being with no distinguishable preternatural abilities, so Scott mostly keeps quiet about it.)

“And - and you know there are more, don’t you? Beacon Hills wasn’t the only one.”

He nods - he’s known that for awhile. Deaton’s implied there are dozens of activity spots, all over the world. Far as they know, the one in Beacon Hills is the only one that’s been used so far for more distinctly sinister things. (And God - a Hellmouth beacon opened by a pissy ex-Alpha with a penchant for deep v-necks, like - there’s a reason Stiles had Scott listed in his phone as Buffy for an entire year.)

“They’re not all active but - Scott, I think you could shut them all down.” Scott mouth twists, but she goes on, before he has a chance to argue: “Creatures like us - we still have enough compassion left to remember what it was like to be human,” Selene says, then leans forward, voice low:

“But you’ve seen what the beacon can do to the supernatural. You’ve seen what can come from it. It’s like a magnet for evil things, Scott - things that beat black wings of death like a murder of crows wherever they go. The beacon can attract things that were never meant to see light.”

A chill runs up Scott’s spine at the thought; he hasn’t properly thought about Homecoming night in a long time. Not if he can help it.

“You can destroy them all,” she says. “And I want to assist, in any way I can.”

“But we’re just - we’re just kids,” Scott tells her, another laugh threatening to spill out, disconcerted with the pure sense of faith emanating out of her. “We’re kids, we have no idea what we’re doing most days.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Selene says with a shake of her head, so serious. “I think you’re extremely competent. I think the red in your eyes was earned with not a drop of blood spilled to color it, and - and I think your pack can do great things, Scott McCall.”

Scott opens his mouth to answer when the front door swings open with a flushed Lydia rushing into the entranceway. She says, “Will - ?”

Selene lets out a deep sigh, and stands. Scott follows her out before she has a chance to tell him to stay put and when they get outside, the porch swing is rocking, but no one's sitting on it; there's a scuffle to the right of the wraparound porch, and the three of them hurry along it to find Danny with his back to the side of the house, Isaac stood half in front of him, amber eyes eerily bright and teeth bared.

The boy in front of them looks their age, and it's clear he's in the middle of goading Danny when he simpers, "Aw, c'mon. Bet you'd make a great vamp. Or you smell like you would, anyway."

His eyes drop - Scott tracks his gaze, notices Danny's got the tiniest slice on his finger, a pinprick drop of dried blood gathered in the swirl pattern.

“Thought your kind wasn't into human blood anymore,” Isaac says, arm out to the side to cover Danny.

“I can make an exception,” Will says with a whisper.

“Will,” Selene warns, but she goes ignored. Scott takes a step but Selene holds him back and shakes her head.

“If he bites Danny -” Scott starts, figures the I’ll hurt him, and ruin whatever urge you had to help me goes unsaid, but the stare Selene levels him with has him falling silent.

“He won’t.”

Will looks all the world like a bratty, self-indulgent teenager, and Scott guesses this is what Nosferatu meant when he said youthful. “Isn’t being human so tedious? How can you stand it?”

“I’ve gotten along fine for eighteen years,” Danny says, aiming for unconcerned. His hands are curled into fists, ready for a fight, but Scott can practically see his heart beating in his damn throat though, knows Will can, too, and he takes another step forward, but Lydia grips the back of his shirt.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to die today,” she says quietly, for only him to hear, and then, a bit sardonically: “Which is good, because I’m getting a sore throat and the screaming would only exacerbate it.”

“You’re useless as a human. You’d be a machine as one of us,” Will says, and Scott's pretty sure no one in the world should be able to look at someone like that - like they'd want nothing more than to take someone apart piece by piece and destroy them. "It's always easy to tell who'll excel, after a bite. We don't drain anymore, but we definitely change, if you want it bad enough it. Don’t you want it?"

"Fuck me, are you serious right now?" Isaac snaps, finally giving Danny a small, purposeful shove to the left so he teeters Scott's way. Will’s eyes consider him briefly, and his focus shifts to Isaac.

"Fuck you? Honestly I’m more of a cat person, but y’know. Maybe later, if you're lucky."

He touches Isaac’s waist, and something bubbles in Scott's veins like he's boiling and a growl rips out of him, low and menacing. Isaac snaps to attention, startled, and Scott cuts himself off and claps a hand over his mouth.

What the fuck?

Will turns to him, smiling gleefully. "Did you just growl at me?"

"I.” Scott lowers his hand. “Don't know?"

"It's alright, I don't mind. I've always been able to appreciate a little bit of tension in a relationship.” He takes in Isaac, and aims a twisted smile Scott’s way.

"Apparently so do you -"

"William!" Selene hisses finally, fangs out, and Will jumps, shivers like he’s just had a gallon of ice-water upended on him.

"Oh," he winces, demeanor a complete one-eighty from a few moments ago; Isaac lopes a careful path around him to where the pack's standing, and Will shakes his head, rubs at a wrinkle of consternation between his brows. "Fuck, I'm having a hard time transitioning, sorry. My birthday was last week."

He’s immediately more personable this way, gentler, and Scott remembers his first full moon and the split second of insatiable, unwanted bloodlust when he looked at his best friend of ten years and thought Kill. "I was new once,” is all he says, and Will smiles at him, faltering.

“I’m really sorry,” he takes a halting step towards Danny, who matches it with a step back. He grimaces. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t - normally I’m more charming, less psychopathic teenaged vampire out for victims."

Danny makes a vague sound of agreement, eyeing where his car's parked, and Scott says, "We should go."

"Probably best," Selene says, and then gives a clipped, "Inside," to Will.

"We'll go wait in the car," Lydia says, and she tugs on Danny's hand, Isaac close behind them.

Once they're out of earshot, Selene sighs. "I'm sorry - eighteen can be difficult -"

"I know," Scott says. Tries to joke: "I mean, I start college in like, two weeks, so."

Her shoulders sag a touch. “I meant what I said, about the beacons. I hope you know that. Don’t dismiss it because my son’s sense of rational thought is a little skewed at the moment - please,” she says, quietly pleading.

Scott stare shifts to where Danny’s car is - it’s already running, Lydia sitting in the driver’s seat with Danny occupying passenger. Isaac stands in front of the open back seat door by the curbside, watching Scott. Waiting.

“I’ll think about it,” he says, tactful, and then looks at Selene and tells her what he knows: “The man - the werewolf that manipulated the beacon where we’re from - that was an anomaly. He was an anomaly. From what we’ve tried to figure out, the beacon’s only as good as the creatures that surround it and,” he pauses, and smiles ruefully.

“I have to believe whatever exists around the other beacons will only want good things.”

“Isn’t that just blind faith?” Selene asks with a raised brow.

“It’s optimism,” Scott shrugs. He adds earnestly, “It’s quiet for now, where we’re going. Where the others are, in New York. And I just - I just want them to have a regular life. Even if it’s only for a little while.”

Selene nods shortly. “I can understand that,” she says, mindful, and her mouth picks up warmly in the corners. “My offer for help still stands. Always.”

“Thank you,” Scott says, holding out a hand to shake hers. “I’ll remember that.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Scott McCall,” she says, her smile empathetic. “I genuinely hope it’ll be a long time before you need to call on me.”

Scott nods.

“I hope so, too.”

*

“What happened?” Scott asks later, when they’re on their way to the hotel. Danny twists around in the passenger seat, holds out his index finger for Scott to inspect.

"There were staples keeping the cushions on the swing. Nicked my finger on it. You think I need a tetanus shot?”

Scott shakes his head, runs a thumb over the pad of Danny’s finger with intent, and black runs in his veins before it disappears; when he takes his hand away, the cuts gone, and Danny smiles. “That is always the coolest thing ever.”

Scott sits back again, smiles back briefly and asks, “You alright?”

“What?” Danny glances at him and nods. “Oh - yeah, I mean. I get that’s it’s like, a condition that comes with turning eighteen for them - which sucks right, who wants to be an asshole for weeks on end without any control over it?”

“Doesn’t excuse it,” Lydia says, and Danny lifts a shoulder.

“No,” he agrees, and turns his head to speak to Scott again: “But next time we get an offer to hang out with vamps, I’ll probably just stay home. What’d she talk to you about, anyway?”

Scott darts a quick look at Isaac, figured he would have overheard and said something to them, but he hasn’t and even now, he’s just staring out the window. “She told me she heard about what we did back home,” Scott says, tearing his eyes away from Isaac. “Offered to help us, if it happened again with any of the others.”

“When - like, during break from school?” Danny laughs. “Come all ye faithful during the Christmas season and bash some demon heads in?”

“I don’t care what we do during breaks,” Lydia announces. “Just as long as it doesn’t involve another road trip.”

“Amen,” Danny says.

(It takes Scott until Lydia shifts the car to Park in front of their hotel to realize Isaac hasn’t said a word.)

*

Isaac heads straight to their room, even when Lydia suggests going out to dinner. She gives Scott a confused look, but he just shrugs. "No idea," he tells them, and follows Isaac even though it doesn’t make much of a difference; he stays silent - closes the door to the bathroom when he brushes his teeth, changes into his pajamas with his back to Scott like looking at him is an effort he’s not willing to make. Scott's twitchy because of it, even though he knows Isaac's not mad at him - far as Scott can tell, anyway. There’s a lot in him to decipher, but none of it is anger.

By some unspoken agreement - maybe the pure familiarity of it - Scott drops down onto Isaac’s bed, side by side, knees pulled to their chests while Isaac jabs at the remote. He settles on an old Western that’s just starting on a grainy network channel, and Scott’s eyes start to droop halfway through; he lets his head fall onto Isaac’s shoulder and Isaac -

Isaac tenses.

Scott turns in, so his forehead’s resting where his temple was. “What’s wrong?" he asks, subdued. "What’d I do?”

“Nothing,” Isaac says, and Scott thumps him with his forehead, gently. Snakes his hand through the loop of Isaac’s arm, slides the pads of his fingers down so they brush at the thin skin of Isaac's wrist.

“Liar.”

Isaac doesn’t say anything.

Then, just as Scott’s sure the conversation’s over and his eyes begin to shut, Isaac drops his shoulder, leans until he has his mouth at Scott’s ear. “If I ask you something, will you tell me the truth?”

Scott’s fingers twitch, skid along Isaac’s palm. Isaac tries again:

“If I ask you something, will you at least attempt to answer?”

Scott - Scott’s burning up: itchy sweat prickling at his armpits and stomach red-hot and flipping fast; his throat’s on fire when he swallows, and he slides his hand down the rest of the way to fit his fingers between Isaac’s.

"Why'd you growl at him?"

“Who?”

“Scott.”

"I don't know,” he says, rushed, feeling stupid and small and on the verge of the dry sting in his eyes turning embarrassingly wet.

"You really don't know?"

He waits for Scott to respond, and when Scott can’t do much but squeeze his hand tighter, Isaac sighs. Scott feels lips glance his temple with a kiss, and he shuts his eyes as tight as they’ll go. “Go to sleep, Scott,” Isaac tells him, and it’s exactly what he said the last time they were on a hotel bed together, only this he disentangles their hands, shifts away enough to break whatever was holding them in place.

Scott edges off Isaac’s bed to move to his own, and when Isaac shuts off the television, and then the lamp between their beds, he offers up a silent prayer of thanks to whoever is listening that the car ride tomorrow to Chicago is only a handful of hours at most.

He’s not sure he can take much more than that now.

*

It’s Lydia’s turn to drive, officially, and she lets the car idle in front of the hotel as she waits for them early morning, a carton of four convenience store coffees resting atop the dashboard of the passenger side. The boys pack the bags, and before Danny makes it around, Isaac’s opening the passenger side and dropping in.

Right. That’s new.

“Um,” Danny laughs uneasily, and peers up over the roof of the car to tell Scott. “Okay, I guess I’m sitting with you today.”

And Scott can’t - he can’t acknowledge the weirdness of it - so he just smiles back - too-bright, too-fake, if the way Danny frowns a bit in response is any indication. “You could at least try to sound a little enthused about it, dude.”

They get in, and Lydia hands back their coffees - Scott’s not sure why he even drinks coffee in the mornings anyway, not like the caffeine boost does anything - and they head in the direction of the Interstate. Danny volleys unsure looks between Scott and Isaac the whole ride, feels like, and Scott knows exactly why he growled.

He just doesn’t know if he can say it out loud yet.

(He’s on a precipice, and part of him hopes something will finally push him off the edge soon.)

*

From Danny:
I’m living in a teen soap opera :( also can a person get blue balls by proxy?

From: Stiles
Dude I'm frustrated FOR them and I'm in New York, yes you can get blue balls by proxy

From: Danny
Oh. I can help w that ;)

From: Stiles
I'm in NEW YORK and past experience with you offering up sexual favors has led me to believe you’re a LIAR, so

From: Danny
Idk Stilinski you grew up p well. Might rethink my previous decision.

From: Stiles
Oh well don't act like it's such a hardship for you, Danny boy

From: Danny
Nothing's hard at all, really.

From: Stiles
Fuck off, I hope a werewolf eats you in your sleep

*

Scott’s been waiting for them to hit Chicago since this trip started. There’s another pack of wolves here, and Stiles tells him their Alpha - Luz, quick-witted and kind - reminds him of Melissa “except less scary, more fang-y.”

(“My mom’s not scary,” Scott said, and Stiles scoffed.

“Your mom is a little scary, dude. But it works for her. No one fucks with Mama McCall.”)

They check into The Drake on the eighth, in one massive room with a king-sized bed that Lydia and immediately call dibs on with Danny and a queen-sized sofa-bed that Scott eyes warily once he and Isaac pull it out.

“Cozy,” Danny says with a waggle of his eyebrows, and then vaults over the back of the sofa to flop down onto it; he crosses his legs at his ankles, rests his arms behind his head and sighs happily. “Can’t we stay here an extra day?”

“We’re already cutting it close with the schedule,” Isaac shakes his head. “We have to get to Ann Arbor by the eleventh.”

“Oh,” Danny deflates, and then heaves himself off the bed with a groan, only to drag his feet to his and Lydia’s; he falls down face first, mumbles, “Nap now, right? We have hours until we’re supposed to meet up.”

Scott looks down at the bed, and then up at Isaac.

“Think I’ll go for a run,” Isaac says, crouching down to dig through his bag; he’s already wearing old Beacon Hills gym uniform sweats and running shoes, comes up with his iPod after a moment. “Check out the fitness center.”

Scott wants to shake him. Instead, he watches Isaac jam his earbuds in and head out. The door shuts behind him, and it’s quiet for a moment before Danny suggests sleepily, “You should probably go talk to him.”

Scott swallows past the feeling of his throat closing up, and stays where he is.

*

He pretends to be asleep when Isaac gets back from his run, but by the time Isaac collapses onto the sofa-bed, fresh out of the shower and smelling like hotel soap and frustration, Scott's heart is thumping so hard in his chest he can't breathe. He doesn't give Isaac a chance to call him out on it, just rolls over; Isaac's watching him, head pillowed under his arm.

"What time is it?"

"Almost six."

They're supposed to meet up with the wolf pack at seven; he'll probably need to wake up Lydia and Danny soon so they have enough time to get ready. "Good run?" Scott asks, and Isaac lifts a shoulder.

He doesn't say anything, and Scott takes a breath. And another. And then decides Fuck it and says, "I didn't want him touching you."

"Okay," Isaac nods slow. "Why?"

Scott opens his mouth, and nothing comes out; Isaac shifts closer and then he palms Scott's waist, gathers the cloth in his hand tight and twisting and lets out an exasperated laugh. "Why?"

He closes his eyes. "You know why."

"So say it," Isaac fires back and Scott makes a noise in his throat and bumps his nose to Isaac’s and he thinks This is it, this is what he’s been waiting for.

This is the push.

He tips his chin up, mouth dragging against the corner of Isaac’s and his breath catches as he pulls away. Isaac’s brow is knit together, studying him for one long, intense moment and then he gets a hand under Scott’s jaw and dives back in - only to jerk to a stop when an alarm near the other bed goes off. They lie there, huddled together, as Danny rouses with a barely-awake grumble and a sleepy groan; Scott can hear his joints crack loud in his ears, can feel Isaac’s breath against his mouth.

“Lydia, get up -”

“Mmm - ?”

“Get up, there’s one bathroom and you take forever. Hey! Are you guys up?”

He can’t see them over the back end of the sofa, and the moment hangs in the balance and then cracks into pieces; Isaac takes his hands away, and Scott reluctantly hauls himself up into a sitting position.

“I’m awake,” he says, and Isaac flops onto his back, combs a hand through his hair and stares up at the ceiling.

“You okay? Your face is all weird,” Danny says, squinting tiredly, and Isaac laughs quietly, rolls over and pushes himself up to sit at the edge of the sofa-bed. He’d put on regular clothes after his shower - jeans and a shirt, the back still wet at the collar from his hair. His shoulders are broad and strong and stiff with tension and Scott is fucked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he lies.

(The eleven minute walk to the apartment building might be the longest trip they’ve taken yet.)

*

Stiles Stilinski (Google Drive) - Monster Mash Road Trip Bash Itinerary

[...]

Destination #4 - Chicago, IL.
ETA: 09/10/13 - 09/12/13
Travel time from Iowa City, IA: ~4hrs
Creature Meeting of the Day: WOLF PACK :D
Where: 1350/1360 Lake Shore Drive, Gold Coast, Tier 10. Tell the doorman who you are.

[...]

*

A woman - mid-twenties, maybe - who calls herself Rosa lets them in when they get there; she introduces them to her boyfriend Marcus and her cousin Josh, a twelve year old who’s zoned out in front of the television. Rosa buddies up with Lydia fast after Lydia asks her about her boots; Marcus shrugs at Danny, and Danny shrugs back - which practically means Danny’s found a new best friend - and after Scott and Isaac say hello, Marcus tells them Luz is in the kitchen.

(Isaac follows behind him, hand ghosting near his hip, and Scott schools the beat of his heart into a steady, flat rhythm.)

There’s a little girl no more than five in the kitchen, sitting cross-legged in front of the oven and watching something - cookies, smells like - bake, and an older couple - this one in their thirties - drinking coffee at the table in the nook who introduce themselves as Vivienne and Tomás. A woman at the counter, furiously mixing cookie dough with a spoon and blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face, says, “Scott and Isaac, right? Luz, hi, sorry, let me just -”

She sets the spoon down, washes her hands and dries them on a paper napkin before finally holding out a hand for Scott and Isaac to shake. “Hi. Hold on -” She looks down near the oven. “Maria, get off the floor, we have company.”

The little girl looks up at her, bottom lip poking out as she sighs an elongated Wela, and Luz snaps her fingers towards the living room. “Go. Watch TV with Josh,” and then, when Maria makes a show of pushing past Scott and Isaac to trudge towards the sofas, “and tell him to stop sitting so close to it - he’ll go blind!”

“Growl next time, Loup,” Vivienne says with a laugh. “Your menacing voice isn’t nearly as effective as you think it is.”

“Enough out of you - don’t forget to put the rest of the dough in when those are done,” is all she says in response, and then puffs out a breath, grinning at Scott; she kind of reminds him of his mother and he focuses on this instead of the fact that the back of Isaac’s keeps brushing against his every time one of them shifts. “If you wouldn’t mind, I was hoping to talk to you alone? We have a rooftop deck - the rest of your pack’s welcome to come up after, of course, but this will give us some time to ourselves.”

“Um,” he leans back a bit, to peer into the living room - there’s a game set up on the screen now, Mario Kart Wii, with Danny while Rosa playing while Josh and Marcus cheer them on; Lydia’s sitting on the sofa with Maria, letting her try on a few bangles. This is the first pack of wolves he's met since the Alphas. It’s been ten minutes, and no one’s died yet, so they’ve already got a leg up on Deucalion.

“Don’t worry, we’ll keep your mate company,” Tomás says, and Vivienne laughs lightly.

“Yeah, get all the dirty details on the newest true Alpha.”

Isaac breaks his eye contact with Scott. “His what?”

“Stop,” Luz says sharply to the two of them, waving a hand to relax, and then she turns back to Scott, but -

“My what?” Tomás pulls a face at Vivienne when Scott speaks, sort of a sheepish grimace, and Scott's delirious when he asks, “Wait - my what?”

“Ignore them,” Luz says, over Tomás’ soft, mildly annoyed, “Cálmate, Luz, it was a mistake.”

“Wait,” Scott says again, and he laughs because he doesn’t know how else to react. He knows what mate means. He just needs to hear them say it, too: “What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing,” Vivienne says with a lazy wave of her hand. “Honestly, we get stuff like that wrong all the time, think everyone is together -” aims a smack to Tomás’ chest at his incredulous We do?, “Isaac come sit with us. We have coffee.”

“And lies,” Tomás adds cheerfully.

Isaac rubs the nape of his neck and says Excuse me, moves past Luz and Scott to get to the breakfast nook. He turns on heel the same time Luz loops her arm through Scott’s to lead him away, and all Scott sees before he’s lead out of the kitchen is Isaac’s face, flushed and unsmiling.

*

Luz says in the elevator, “My brother is a comedian. And his wife does nothing but enable him. The roof is far enough that no one will overhear,” she adds, and then leans in close to whisper conspiratorially, “I’ve tested it.”

Scott must’ve left his body in the kitchen. It’s the only way to explain why he’s so dizzy, swaying in place and blinking hard, unable to focus on anything besides We’ll keep your mate company.

“Hey,” Luz says, and smiles close-mouthed at him, nods her head a little. “It’ll be alright, you’ll see.”

The elevator doors soundlessly open, and Luz leads him out onto the deck.

Scott really wants to believe her.

*

From: Isaac
Need to talk to you later

From: Allison
Call me whenever. You okay?

From: Isaac
I don’t know. Later?

From: Allison
Later. Definitely.

*

"So. Scott McCall. A true alpha."

Scott meets her gaze head on, hands clasped in front of him to keep from nervously picking at hangnails; they’re sitting at a glossy black table in the corner of the rooftop deck, and it’s Hell of a lot windier up here than it was on the ground. "Yeah."

"Never thought I'd live to see another one."

Wait. He picks his head up. "You're - ? But Stiles - my best friend, he said there hasn't been one in, like. Sixty years."

She barely looks older than his mom.

"I'd imagine it has been that long. I was... twenty-four, when it happened?"

“Right.” Scott chews on his lip. “Complicated werewolf aging process.”

Scott knows he’s eighteen in this body, in human years. Doesn’t quite know how long he’ll look like he’s eighteen. He and Stiles have never managed to figure out how it works, exactly - can’t ask Derek or Cora, who’re still AWOL. Deaton just gives them his typically cryptic answers. But Luz - he leans forward, hesitant as he asks, “Do you - I mean, how does it work? Us aging?”

“Like dog years,” she says, brushing windblown hair out of her eyes. “Or - in reverse. One year for every seven of the lives of people you love.”

Something heavy settles in Scott’s gut. “Have you seen the - the humans you love die?”

“A few. Rosa's father,” Luz answers, hand reaching out to settle on his. When he looks up at her, she shakes her head slowly. “It never stops hurting. Humans are beautiful, but delicate. Prone to illness and injury and death. I think that’s why we live within our packs; it’s easier.”

Scott smiles down at his hand; it falters to something downhearted. “Half my pack is human. My mom is human.”

Luz cups his chin gently and gives him a little shake. “Hey. Cariño, look at me.” He does, mouth pulled down into a frown. She draws her hand away. “From what I’ve heard of you, you do an amazing job protecting them. They’ll live long lives because of you.”

“Yeah,” Scott laughs hollowly. He doesn’t want to watch everyone he loves die while he looks on, fresh-faced and otherworldly. “Just not as long as mine.”

Luz hums consideringly. “Do you think they’ll ever take the Bite -?”

“No.” His brows knit together. “No, and I - I wouldn’t, even if - I. I like them the way they are.” Scott licks his lips and shrugs. “They’re some of the strongest people I know; they don’t always need protecting. Sometimes they’re the ones saving me.”

“I’m sure they have,” she says kindly, and then scoots her chair in and clears her throat. “I had this whole conversation planned out, you know. What I would say, what advice I would give - but you’ve been making that same face since the kitchen, and I’d like to fix it.”

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t say sorry - tell me what I can do. ...You said half your pack is human, right? He’s your only wolf?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, and Luz nods.

“Are you upset because they called him -”

“He’s - we’re not - uh.” His voice shakes, and he gives her a timid smile. “Isaac isn’t...” and he trails off, swallows hard and ignores the way the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Scott says, “He’s not,” and it sounds faltering. Unfinished.

Untrue.

Luz’s mouth curves upward, but for once, he’s not just on the receiving end of a teasing joke:

“Sometimes the wolf in you understands before the person. You know? We can always sense strong bonds - it’s why they assumed - though they shouldn’t have, because if they’d bothered to delve any deeper they’d’ve hit that wall of uncertainty between you two,” she says all this casually, like it’s all laid out there in the open, and Scott doesn't respond. Tries to will away the pressure building in his chest.

He hears Luz say, on the cusp of realization, You've never talked about this, have you? and a gasping laugh gets stuck in his throat.

"You know what it's like to destroy a beacon?" He asks by way of answer, and he's not trying to sound condescending, he just - he needs her to understand. Luz shakes her head.

"I spent the majority of eleventh grade trying not to die. And there were good days, y'know, days without - without virgin sacrifices and the Nemeton and evil Hale uncles coming back from the dead,” her eyes widen, nearly imperceptible, at that, and Scott - Scott hasn’t talked about this, not with Stiles, not with Allison, not with anybody.

Especially not with Isaac.

Scott fidgets in his seat. "We were all just trying to survive, and, and Allison - my ex - things were - everything was so complicated all the time and it was easier to - to push it down."

"Push what down?" Luz asks gingerly, and Scott scrubs a hand through his hair, frustrated.

"I don't know, all of it? Why my voice brought him back from the brink, why he picked me to be his alpha. And then the, the stupid human stuff, too, I - we were around each other constantly, and I stopped thinking about Allison so much, and about continuously screwing things up with Allison, and. He was there, and he made it better. But nothing's ever been black and white with him. I didn't want to make it worse by trying to figure things out in the middle of wondering if we'd all make it to graduation."

He gives her a tired, weak smile.

"I couldn't save the West Coast and analyze why he made my palms sweat."

She doesn't respond, seems to get he's - he's really trying here, because he is, and his head's a mess about it most days - about Isaac most days - but maybe this is good, maybe this is what he needs.

"There was always some hellbent monster of the freakin' week that wanted us all dead, and then one day - it stopped. And there wasn't anything to fight anymore. And I forgot what is was like to just - breathe without feeling like everyone I loved was on borrowed time. I don't know. I spent months thinking Later about him and then... later."

He stops, and laughs again. "Later came and went. And I guess I figured things were just fine the way they were. That we were fine the way we were.”

It's why he's never told Isaac he loves him and - and it's shitty, because of course Scott loves him, has for awhile - loves him like he loves pack, loves Stiles, loves his mom. But somewhere along the line it started to weigh down his tongue, turn his words into lead and stone and was so heavy like -

Like saying it would be an admission of something.

Saying it means redefining the context of something he never even properly understood to begin with. Saying it means he can't take it back, can't wrap it up in a neat little box anymore and stuff it under his bed because he's too chickenshit to admit that wanting to be with Isaac terrifies him, sometimes - and it's because it doesn't feel like that burning, burning, always burning all-consuming need that came with Allison, like dousing a house in gasoline and striking a match;

(They burnt out, he and Allison. Kept trying even though it hurt until there was nothing left but ash and smoke only - only they rebuilt in its place, after. A friendship with a stronger foundation than they’d ever had when they were dating - )

It's not like that at all. Never has been. It's this low simmering want instead, he and Isaac - this tender, breakable thing sitting on the backburner, waiting for Scott to take it and it fucking scares him because he can ruin it like he did the first go around with Allison, and he can't do that with Isaac, can't set them on fire until the only other viable option is friendship, no matter how good it is. He doesn't want friendship to be their endgame.

“I’ve only ever loved Allison,” Scott tells her then, hushed, like it's a secret, like he's afraid even saying that means he's comparing them somehow and Luz laughs - soft, but a genuine laugh - and she leans forward in her seat.

“I’ll tell you something that has nothing to do with being a werewolf, and everything to do with a lifetime of incredibly human experiences, Scott: you can fall in love more than once. It doesn’t negate the impact of the person who came before, and it doesn’t make the current one any less important to you now.”

Scott chewing on his thumbnail nervously and she asks, “Do you think he knows you feel?”

“I think I’ve been pretty awful at communicating that,” Scott says, starkly honest. “This trip’s kind of - uh. I don’t know. A vampire accidentally hit on him and I maybe growled and things have been weird since then -”

“You growled at Isaac?”

“I growled at the vamp,” Scott says, and when Luz covers her mouth and laughs, he hangs his head and joins her.

“I know! I know, it was. It was like this thing in my head was screaming at me. We only hang out with the pack, or each other. There’s never really anyone else around anymore to - get his attention. I... wasn’t used to it,” he finishes lamely, and Luz tsks sympathetically.

“Aren’t you starting college soon? There are a lot of people there who are not in your pack,” Luz points out. “You could both get distracted. A dozen times over.”

Scott frowns at the table. He didn’t think of that.

“Or you could just tell him how you feel - out loud, and as clearly as possible - and see how that works out,” Luz suggests. “Throw caution to the wind and give it a hundred and ten percent. Grab the bull by the horns and kiss him - Isaac, not the bull. You know. All those clichés.”

“This is a great pep talk,” Scott tells her, serious even though he’s laughing again. “Instead of whatever it was supposed to be.”

“Oh, something about you always having a pack in Chicago, if you wanted some extended family,” she waves a hand, nonchalant, but she smiles as she says it.

“All the other werewolves I know who were still alive my senior year were manipulative and sneaky. And prone to disappearing.” Scott tilts his head. “Or murderers.”

“My pack is none of those things, I promise you that,” she says, sobered. “Neither is yours. Sometimes you can, you can sniff it out or just - focus a little harder on what they aren’t saying. Yours is... true. The first of its kind. A strong pack, even with non-werewolves among its ranks. Maybe even because of them. Who knows?"

She touches his hand again and says, "What I do know is that you’re a good person, Scott,” and she makes him think of Melissa in a way that makes him fiercely miss her, even though they’ve only been gone a week. Luz points to his chest, pad of her finger pressed to where his heart beats. “It’s innate, that goodness. You'll never lose it.”

“Ma?”

They both look up - Rosa’s over where the elevator is, and she raises a hand, calls out, “Cookies are ready!”

*

Isaac has frosting on his nose when they get back to the kitchen; he’s sitting in the nook with Maria, helping her decorate a cookie, and he keeps his smile even when Scott sits next to her to watch.

“How was the talk?” Isaac asks, and hands her a plastic spoon to mash yellow frosting down. Scott thinks she’s making a sun.

“A learning experience,” Scott says, and Isaac eyes scrunch up in bemusement before he snorts and looks down. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he shoves a little pile of chocolate chips Maria’s way. “Hey, what’s ‘wela’?”

“Abuela. Grandma.”

“Hm,” Isaac smiles at Maria, crosses his eyes until she laughs at him. “Maria said her wela was talking to the Alpha boy because he’s special.”

“That’s what she sa-aid,” Maria sing-songs, rolling her eyes. Isaac rests his elbow on the table, smiles and leans onto his hand and Scott asks, “What do you think?”

Isaac studies him, eyes tracking down, then up, then somewhere near his mouth before he picks up a cookie and takes a bite of it instead. “Yeah, you’re pretty special, I guess,” he says around a mouthful.

Scott smiles carefully.

“So are you,” Scott tells him, and he says it like he means I’m gonna kiss you really, really soon.

*

Isaac’s talking on the phone in the hallway of their hotel when Scott wakes up in the middle of the night. And Scott knows he shouldn’t eavesdrop, but he hears his name and then Allison’s voice, and he gives in, keeps himself calm as he listens just in case Isaac can tell he’s awake.

“- but how do you know that?” Isaac’s asking, and Allison exhales:

“Because I know what he looks like when he’s into someone, Isaac. I know what he looks like when he wants someone.”

Scott turns a corner of the pillowcase between his fingers, body tight in an effort to not rustle.

“Okay, so why won’t he do anything about it?”

“You said he -”

“Almost kissed me. And then didn’t. And then the pack at the apartment called me -”

“What? Called you what?”

“Nothing,” Isaac says, and there’s a rustling sound like he’s picked his legs up to his chest. “Just something that doesn’t get thrown around lightly.”

“Bad?”

“No,” Isaac says with this low, trembling laugh. “Not bad at all.”

Allison makes a pleased sound at that, and then fails spectacularly at stifling a yawn.

“What time is it there?”

“Only an hour ahead,” she says, amused, on the edges of her last yawn before another one sneaks up on her, “I just ha - I have class in the morning.”

“Shit, sorry.”

“It’s fine, I wanted to talk to you to make sure you were okay.”

“I should get to sleep anyway, we have early checkout. Gotta be in Michigan early, since the details are a little fuzzy on what we’re supposed to be looking for.”

“Alright - you are okay though? Better?”

“I think I just want to get him alone, and talk. And then we’ll see.”

“Just talk?” Allison asks, and Isaac’s laugh is hardly louder than a whisper.

“Shut up,” he says, and Scott can hear the smile in his voice.

“I’m only saying, I know what he looks like when he wants someone,” she repeats, and then pauses: “This should be more awkward, right? Talking to an ex about being with an ex - ? Whatever, I don’t care. I’m happy. I’ll be happier when you tell me something concrete.”

“You’re happy he growled at a vampire, and then didn’t-actually-kiss-me when I asked why? And then got overly tactile when he came down from his talk with the other Alpha? None of that makes much sense.”

“Yeah, well, boys are stupid sometimes,” Allison tells him.

“Hey -”

“I am totally including you in that generalization,” she assures him. “Scott’s not the only one who has to put something on the line, y’know.”

“I’m going to bed,” Isaac tells her, and she laughs.

“Fine. But I think you’d be content with the end result if you just told him how you felt.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It’s only as difficult as you make it,” Allison says. “And you and Scott have created so many hoops to jump through you might as well be a three ring circus, so. Uncomplicate things. Shake him out of it. Kiss the shit out of him -”

“That’s gross, Al -”

“Not literally, oh God, I’m hanging up now,” she says, laughing, and Isaac opens the door to the hotel room; Scott’s facing it - realizes belatedly that he should have turns around - and he shuts his eyes. “I’ll see you in a few days?”

“Yeah,” he’s whispering now. “And - thanks.”

“You know you can talk to me. Anytime, Isaac.”

“I know,” he gingerly lifts the covers, slides onto the sofa-bed without jostling it too much. “Night.”

She says goodnight, and he hangs up; Scott keeps his eyes closed, lets his chest rise and fall as naturally as it can.

“Wake up,” he says, and when Scott keeps his charade up, Isaac shuffles around under the sheets and laughs.

“Tomorrow," he says. "I swear.”

*

Stiles Stilinski (Google Drive) - Monster Mash Road Trip Bash Itinerary

[...]

Destination #5 - Ann Arbor, Michigan.
ETA: 09/12/13
Travel time from Chicago, IL: ~3.5hrs
Creature Meeting of the Day: FAIRIES??????????????
Where: I have no idea. All my efforts to get in touch with them has come up empty, but I'm SURE they're there you just gotta... look around. I DID make a list of the more magic-y shops in the area, so maybe just ask the shopkeepers until you find a decent lead I TRUST YOU ALL TO BE NANCY DREWS HERE. FIND ME SOME FAIRIES.

[...]

*

They get to Ann Arbor on the twelfth, check into the hotel at ten - two rooms, this time - and promptly track down every shop owner Stiles had listed in the itinerary in the hopes that one of them knows where a real fairy door is. Scott - all of them, really - can suss out pretty quickly which shopkeepers know what they’re talking about, and which don’t and so far -

So far it seems like most of them are talking out of their asses.

Oh, Scott can appreciate the effort, sure - if a wide-eyed six year comes up to you and asks you if fairies are real, of course you’re going to say yes. Maybe create a door of your own and hide it somewhere in town for them to “find” later on - it’s a nice thing to do, especially in a town that seems to embrace the peculiarity of it with open arms, but they’d be able to rule out every fairy door they’d been given directions.

They split up, eventually, when they get to a massive block of shops - Danny and Isaac in one direction, Scott and Lydia in another - and It’s when Scott and Lydia get to their fifth one of the day that they find what they’re looking for.

Which isn’t a fairy door, but a place.

“But some of them are real,” the girl at the counter - Flora - says. Her mother owns the shop that sells jewelry “made” by fairies - Scott would call bullshit, but Flora’s eyes are the oddest shade of green and her ears are the slightest bit pointed at the very top and every time she’s laughed so far, Scott’s sure he’s heard bells in the distance. She also was completely standoffish until Lydia, of all people, had spoken up - she’d murmured bean sídhe and Scott vaguely remembers Lydia talking about fairy mounds a lot when she was first looking up the banshee stuff.

Maybe Flora actually is a fairy.

There have been weirder things that have happened during this trip.

“The one you’re looking for is in an orchard. Westview Orchards, specifically, about an hour, hour-thirty drive, depending on traffic. There, and only there, will you find the door you’re looking for.”

She writes the name down on a stack of Post-Its in curlicue handwriting, and then an address underneath that.

“Aren’t orchards massive? How can we find it?” Lydia asks.

“That I can’t help you with. If you’re meant to find it, you’ll find it. If not,” Flora pauses, and laughs, and there go the bells again. “Well, you’ll have picked some really delicious apples to take home.”

“Okay,” Scott takes the Post-It from her and stuffs it carefully into his pocket. “Thanks.”

“Good luck,” she calls as they leave the shop; the other three have stepped when he hears. “Oh, and - !”

Scott glances over his shoulder, hand on the door; Flora’s smiling at him still from the register, and she waves. “If you see my mother, tell her it’s been awhile. Time ticks on different there, and she always forgets.”

“Will do,” Scott says, and turns his head and promptly bumps into Isaac.

“Um,” he says eloquently, and lifts his chin. “Hey, dude.”

“Hi,” Isaac chews on the corner of his mouth and smiles. “Me and Danny were -”

“Oh, we already - uh,” Isaac’s hand is on his waist, and he loses all train of thought as he lets the shop door swing shut behind him. “Fairy Post-It mounds.”

Isaac laughs. “What on earth are you -”

“Post-It! I have a Post-It,” Scott digs through his pocket, grabs the note and shoves it in Isaac’s direction. Isaac touches his hand way more than he needs to just to grab a tiny piece of neon pink square paper, and Scott’s not even sure what direction they’re walking in. Where Danny and Lydia are. If he’s even awake.

“Westview Orchards?”

“Yeah. Lydia’s a fairy, so.”

“Did you hit your head?” Isaac asks, and Scott says, “Yes,” just so he’ll have an out. Only it doesn’t work, because Isaac slips the Post-It into his pocket, and then reaches up to poke and prod at Scott’s head.

“Does it hurt?”

“Tons,” Scott says. “There was a shelf. A lot of trinkets. I might have a concussion.”

“You’re a dork,” Isaac says fondly, and lets a hand stray from Scott’s temple, drift down along his jaw before it falls to his side. “You’re fine.”

Scott. Maybe wants to grin, jokingly lecherous, and say Yeah, so are you, except that’s not cute at all, or how he wants this to go, so he snaps his mouth shut and points behind Isaac.

It’s only pure luck that the car’s parked that way.

Danny and Lydia are leaning against it when they get there, and Isaac hands over the Post-It to Danny who inspects it like it holds some great secret. “Fairies. You guys ready to meet some fairies?”

“I bet they’ll be cute,” Isaac climbs into the backseat after Scott does, smiles at him as he says this. “Like Tinkerbell. Or the fairy godmother in Cinderella.”

“They’re fairies,” Lydia says. “How scary could they even be?”

“You’re technically a fairy,” Scott reminds her. “You’re dangerous when you wanna be.”

“Yes, well, I’m also Lydia Martin; I’m sure that has a hand in things.”

“Well, I’m excited,” Danny says as he buckles himself in. “I hope we find the door right away. I hope they like us.”

Scott pats his shoulder from the backseat.

“What’s not to like, dude?” he says.

*

The fairies don’t like them at all.

Or - to be fair, they might have, only this is sorta-kind-mostly Scott’s fault. They got to the orchard around four, paid the three dollar fee even when the worker given them their tickets informed them they’d only have an hour of apple-picking time left before that section closed. The four of them fucked around until the entire orchard closed at six, and once Scott heard the last human footstep recede into the distance two hours after that, they'd set Lydia off to find the door like a bloodhound on a scent, which annoyed her for approximately three minutes until she actually found the freakin’ door. This tiny little thing, painted a swirl of purples and reds that only Lydia could see directly. Scott and Isaac had to look out of their periphery; it never appeared until they thought it wasn’t there, and when they thought it was, it was gone. Danny could hardly see it at all, from any angle, and complained in a hushed whisper about it until an apple fell off the orchard and hit him on the head.

Scott laughed at him, stifled with a hand over his mouth, head tilted up to watch for any more wayward examples of gravity, and that was when he saw it. Another apple, possibly the most perfect apple he’d ever seen; Scott picked it off carefully, held it out to Isaac who shook his head, and wiped it on his shirt.

Lydia said, “Alright, on the count of three,” crouched down and with her index finger and thumb holding onto a tiny little doorknob. They’d counted down - one, two -

She opened the door, and Scott took a bite.

They heard the angry chiming about fifteen seconds after that.

And now - well now, they’re running through the orchard at top speed, hundreds of bright, incredibly vexed fairies chasing them, Scott’s bitten-into apple forgotten on the ground somewhere back by the fairy door. None of them exactly know what’ll happen if the fairies catch up, but they don’t really want to find out either; Danny books it towards the car and shouts, "Maybe they'll stop chasing us if we make it past the orchards!"

"I am -" that's Lydia, right behind Scott panting and reedy, "I am going to murder you, Scott! I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill Stiles!” and Isaac snorts from Scott's right.

"This isn't funny, Lahey!" Lydia says. "We're being chased by angry Tinkerbells, and you're laughing -"

The chimes behind them turn sharp and screeching and Danny digs his hand in his jean pocket for the car keys as the Oldsmobile comes into view. "Think they heard you, Martin!"

"Oh, for the love of," she stops suddenly, and Scott and the other boys stumble and stutter to a stop; when they lope around to reach her, she's standing with her hands on her hips, facing the swarm of oncoming fairies.

"Lydia," Scott takes a step but she twists her torso, holds out a hand.

"Do me a favor, McCall? Cover your ears."

"Oh, Jesus," Danny says, and crumples onto the ground in a kneeled position, head in his lap, and when Scott turns to Isaac, he's already got his hands over clamped over his own ears. He could try to look a less gleeful about it, Scott thinks.

"Scott!"

He turns away from Isaac, and Lydia's glaring at him. "Stop ogling, cover your damn ears!"

He does as he's told and he's wincing in preparation as Lydia inhales deep. She lets out a banshee scream just as the fairies break the orchard, and Scott grimaces because she's really fucking loud, but the first wave of fairies hit her yell like an invisible barrier and zig zag through the air, disoriented, until one by one they zip back onto their sacred ground.

Lydia's scream tapers off, and her hands slowly unclench from their fists, and they wait another moment, but the fairies have apparently given up. She turns imperiously, and holds a single, manicured finger in Scott's direction. "If Stilinski ever so much as indirectly causes me to sweat again, I will flay him limb from limb. And why would you eat an apple off an enchanted tree, are you five years old, Scott?"

"You're my favorite," Danny mutters; he breathes in deep, jingles the car keys in his hand. They can hear people now, human people, woken up from Lydia’s scream. "Uh, c'mon, let's go, before they get a second wind. Or we get arrested for trespassing."

He hurries to the Oldsmobile, slides into the drivers seat, and Lydia's opening the passenger side door as Scott opens the back for Isaac. Isaac’s leaning against it when he asks, "Hey, Martin?"

"What?"

"That whole banshee thing?" Isaac pauses, and Lydia lifts her eyebrows and shakes her head impatiently.

"What, Lahey?"

"Well, I just wanted to know if you were a screamer in bed," Isaac finishes, and Lydia's mouth twitches into the most stubborn grin Scott's seen her display yet. Then she rolls her eyes and drops into her own seat.

"Wouldn't you like to know, asshole," she calls out sweetly, over the car radio coming to life, blaring music off Danny's iPod. Isaac laughs, head thrown back and shoulders shaking, and Scott nudges him forward.

Isaac turns, back against the hinge, one arm curled over the open door, the other over the hood and looks down at Scott, licks his lips as his mouth breaks into a smile. Scott shakes his head, murmurs, “She’ll turn your brain into goo one of these days if you keep messing with her.”

“I’m not afraid of Lydia Martin,” Isaac says, and he glances over his shoulder, retracts, “okay, I’m a little afraid of Lydia Martin.”

“You should be afraid of the fairies.”

“I should be afraid of Stiles,” Isaac says, and his whole face lights up in amusement. “Next time he wants to plan a supernatural road trip, he can deal with the cultural miscommunications.”

“I don’t know,” Scott shrugs. “You handled yourself pretty well.”

Danny and Lydia are still talking inside the car, and Scott’s pretty sure he’s only got about another minute before Danny sticks his head out of the window and yells at them to get the fucking lead out.

“Watch yourself then, McCall,” Isaac whispers, head ducked to catch Scott’s eyes. “Don’t take any more enchanted apples.”

“What am I, Snow White?”

“Mm.” Isaac wrinkles his nose. “You’re better-looking.”

A laugh bursts forth from Scott’s chest, one he doesn’t want to contain, and Isaac’s still smiling, soft around the edges as he pulls his bottom lip in for a moment, and Scott hasn't wanted to kiss someone so badly since he was sixteen and unafraid of the fire that comes from first love. He wants to kiss Isaac, and he’s wanted to kiss Isaac for - for a stupidly long time, if he’s honest, and it's so simple now -

He wants to kiss Isaac, so he does.

Scott lifts his chin, only just registers Isaac’s eyes widening a touch, and he presses their lips together, doesn’t have a chance to freak and overthink it because Isaac’s smiling, and he’s parting his mouth, and he’s kissing Scott back.

Scott grips him by the waist, plays the cloth of his sweater between his fingers, kisses him once, twice - and it’s easy, it is, doesn’t have to go any further than this right now. It’s easy, and Scott’s heart is thumping like a rabbit’s and he knows Isaac can hear it, thinks maybe the whole fucking world can hear it.

Isaac tips their foreheads together and he grins, lets out a puff of hushed, breathless laughter and asks softly, “What was that for?”

Scott says, “I -”

“Can you two,” Danny sticks his head out the window, “stop whatever the fuck you’re doing and get in the goddamn car before we get shot, or arrested, or turned into fucking fairy food - get -” he lightly smacks Isaac in the shoulder a few times, enough to get him moving. “In the car! You’re like children!”

Isaac climbs in first this time, Scott after, and he doesn’t even give Scott a chance to catch his breath before Isaac grabs him by the back of his neck and pulls him in for another kiss, only they’re laughing, and the road is way too uneven, so their mouths mostly just bump together. Neither Lydia or Danny are paying attention to them, and Scott’s lips are tingling. Honestly tingling. His whole body is tingling.

He’s.

Starting to go numb?

“Isaac?” he says, molasses-slow, and Isaac looks like he’s never going to stop smiling again. Isaac looks like there are three of him. In different colors. A kaleidoscope of Isaac’s.

“Yeah?”

“Bad apple,” he slurs, and then blacks out.

*

“Scott? Fuck - ! Scott! Scott, wake up.” Isaac shakes him, pats his cheeks, but he’s out cold. “Hey, wake up. Wake up, wake up - Lydia. Lydia, he won’t - “

Lydia has her hand up to her mouth and Danny detours onto the shoulder of the road and screeches to a halt - the car’s far enough now and covered by the night to keep anyone from finding them, if they were going to - and turns in his seat.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac shakes him again. “He just fucking fainted! I was kidding about the enchanted apple!”

“What?” Danny says, and then shakes his head, thumps Scott on the chest a few times before Isaac pulls him away and glares.

“He fainted, he doesn’t need half-assed CPR he needs - magic. Something. I don’t know. Call Stiles. Fuck, he’s gonna freak out. Danny, call Stiles. We have to -”

“No,” Lydia lurches forward, covers Danny’s phone with her hand. “Wait. The girl. The -” she snaps her fingers, face screwed up. “Flora! She was a fairy -”

“How do you -”

“I know, Lahey. It’s like how you can tell when someone’s what you are - just this tiny ripple in my fingertips - look, whatever, I know she’s a fairy, or at the very least knows how to help us.”

Danny still has the phone clutched in his hand, terrified, and Lydia says slowly, “What better way to get rid of a fairy curse than an actual fairy? This’ll work.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Isaac asks with a whisper.

Lydia shakes her head. “Then we call Stiles. And hope he can figure it out.”

*

They get to Flora’s close to nine o’clock, and Lydia breathes out an Oh thank God when they see the shop’s lights are still on, even though a CLOSED sign hangs from the door. Danny nearly trips in his haste to get out of the car, and he’s already pounding on the storefront when Isaac carries Scott out.

He’s like a rag doll, head lolling to the side, arms flopped down, and Isaac winces, adjusts him so Scott’s head’s at least resting a bit on his shoulder before it droops again - Lydia catches it this time, holds Scott’s head up gently, smiles at Isaac in a way that makes him not want to freak the fuck out just a tiny bit less.

“Hello!” Danny shouts. “Magic fairy girl! Open up, we require magic fairy girl assistance!”

She appears at the door in the next beat, and opens the door cautiously.

“What do you want?”

Isaac lifts Scott up in his arms, fully aware he sounds like a grumpy toddler when he says, “Scott ate a bad apple and won’t wake up.”

Flora heaves a sigh and steps aside, open the door and ushering them in with a sweep of her arm. “My fault,” she says. “I forgot to mention that.”

“You forgot to mention that angry fairies will attack us if we try to eat the orchard apples?”

“Well, not all of the apples,” Flora says, quite calmly, Isaac thinks, for someone who is a fucking menace. “Just the ones on that tree. We’ll place him on the table in the back. Come,” she disappears past a curtained entryway, and when they follow her in, they find a workshop. Fairy doors line the shelves, and Lydia looks around before raising a brow at Flora.

“I told you,” she says. “Some of them are real. Here,” she clears a space on the largest table in the center, and Isaac lays Scott down as gently as possible, head pillowed in the crook of Isaac’s arm so it doesn’t thump painfully. Not that Scott would feel it. Danny and Lydia drop down onto the workbench next to him.

“I was expecting you, actually,” Flora confesses. “My mother - she -”

“Was chasing us,” Lydia says scathingly, and Flora shakes her head quickly.

“No, no! My mother - she understands that things are different now. People don’t know the ways of fairy how they used to. Don’t know you aren’t supposed to take from them.”

Flora switches her weight from foot to foot and then turns on heel to a door that’s nailed into the wall; she knocks twice, opens it, and inside is a little pathway where a fairy sits. “C’mon, mother, you said you’d help.”

Flora holds out her hand, but the fairy zooms forward instead and floats above Scott’s chest, chiming something to Isaac and pointing to Scott’s mouth. “Her name’s Lilac,” Flora says. “Give her a sec to get her voice back.”

Lilac inhales deep - Isaac can hear little wisps of it - before she says, “Oh.”

And then: “Oh. Oh, dear. Oh, poor wolf child.”

She looks up at Isaac. “You! How many bites?”

“One? I think?” Isaac worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “Can you help?”

The fairy flutters lower and sits crossed-legged on Scott’s chest, hands pressed to his sternum as she peers down at him.

“Oh, I hope,” she says sadly. “Bright soul.”

“It’s not -” Lydia pauses, wringing, her hands together, as worried as Isaac’s ever seen her. “It’s not permanent, is it?”

“No, not permanent, no,” Lilac murmurs distractedly, chin on her hand. “Oftentimes something is offered in exchange that is powerful enough to negate the curse. Old, pure magic.”

She smiles up at them warmly.

“Please say ‘pure’ is translation for ‘true love’s kiss’,” Danny says. “Isaac would make a great prince - Jesus, whatever,” he pulls out his phone, swipes the screen and begins to type. “I’m going to look up fairies, see if I can find something.”

“I know not of a kiss that will wake him,” the fairy replies, head cocked to the side and wings closing around her like a security blanket. “Forgive me.”

“Please,” Isaac says. “Anything. Is there anything you can do?”

Danny phone buzzes with a notification, and Lilac perks up, glossy wings flapping until she buries herself in his hair, peeking through strands of it fearfully. "What is this fantastic beast?

Danny’s eyes flick up to her, and then back down, before he frowns at Flora who says, “Mom, I’ve told you what iPhones are a dozen times.”

“Eye phone!” She lies on her stomach now, flattening his hair, chin perched on her hands and feet crossed at the ankles. She points to the screen. “Fairy,” she reads. “What an odd spelling. What are you doing, human child?”

“I’m, uh, trying. To find ways to wake Scott up. Figured the best way to start was... the Internet?"

“Goggle,” the fairy repeats, after some effort, and looks to Lydia. “What is the purpose of Goggle?”

Isaac clears his throat. “It’s like, a place to search for information. A collection of facts?”

“A grimoire, then? Spelled to hold secrets?"

"I guess, yeah. But any - any kind of secret you want.”

”Fascinating,” Lilac declares, and then rises to her feet and nods. “I have found the solution to your cursed wolf child.”

“Really?” Isaac asks, on the verge of a smile, and Lilac zips back to her fairy door again, shouts, “Yes, I will see how agreeable they are to my offer - meet me at this fairy door in a day’s time, children, and you will have your answer!”

She slams the fairy door shut, and Isaac says, “What - we don’t - a day - ?”

“Fairy time.” Flora waves a hand. “It’s like, ten minutes, tops.”

Isaac counts the seconds in his head, gets to 504 when there’s a tapping sound coming from the opposite side of the door. Isaac, Danny and Lydia stand and rush to it, Flora behind them. A fairy - not Lilac, a different one - opens a peephole and stares suspiciously out for a moment before slamming it shut.

“Uh,” Danny swings his arms from side to side, mock angry. “Nobody gets in to see the Wizard, not nobody, not no how!”

"Just give it a moment," Flora says.

The door opens again a few seconds later, to Lilac this time, with the sulking fairy behind her.

“Hello, children,” Lilac smiles. “Navi will wake your Alpha in exchange for your miraculous sight phone.”

“iPhone.”

“Eye phone.” Lilac wilts. “Is that not what I said? No matter! That is the deal. Take it or he dies -”

“What -”

“Oh,” Lilac laughs. “I apologize. I mean he will never wake up.”

“That’s not better!”

“Do you take the deal or not, human child?” Lilac asks Danny, who’s staring down at his iPhone despondently.

“We had a good run.” He’s petting it, and there might be tears in his eyes when he says, “My contract doesn’t expire for another year -”

Lydia snaps, “Danny - !” and he shrugs and waves a hand at her.

“I know, give me a moment!” He hands it over, crouching a little so he’s eye-level with the fairy door. “Take good care of her,” he says. “My lock code is 2357. Please let your daughter mail me my memory card.”

Lilac takes the phone - it’s the size of her, and she hugs it around the middle, staggering backwards into the hallway inside the fairy door. Navi makes a motion for them to move so she can see Scott. When they do, she chants something in a foreign, fantastical tongue before she glares at them all in turn and slams the door shut again.

Isaac’s by Scott’s side in two strides, combing a hand through his hair, waiting.

Waiting.

“Maybe it didn’t work,” Danny mutters from where he's standing near the workbench. “Maybe she really just, like. Opened the Chamber of Secrets.”

“You are so deeply uncool,” Isaac tells him in response, and then feels the beginnings of a smile when Scott groans. Lydia rubs his shoulder, grinning, and Danny straightens out, kneels and smiles down at him, too, and Flora says, “Um - usually. They’re usually a little disoriented, and it’s disarming if they’ve got a whole bunch of people staring them down with manic grins -”

Lydia says, “Do you do this often-”

“She took someone’s iPod a few months ago,” Flora says, and shoos Danny and Lydia out towards the front room. “Out, out, out. Let the other wolf stay.”

Isaac doesn’t even ask how she knows - Did he call her a menace before? He lied, she’s amazing - and Scott groans again, louder this time, before he blinks open his eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Ow." He tries to sit up, but makes it about a third of the way before he sways dangerously to the side and Isaac has to catch him again. “Woah - okay, what happened?”

“What... do you remember?”

Scott shuts his eyes. “We went - to shops. To find fairies? And... I don’t.” He stops, blinks again, and looks at Isaac in confusion, and Isaac tries not to feel too disappointed because he’s awake, and that’s what matters.

But then Scott says, “Orchard. There was - we went to the orchard. I ate an apple. Bad apple. I -” He hesitates, and asks with bleary eyes, “Did I dream I kissed you?”

“No, you really did that.”

“Oh,” Scott says with a smile. “Okay, good.”

“Good?”

“Mhm,” he rests against Isaac’s, face mashed into the crook of his neck. “I’m really tired, but I can do it again when I wake up. Do it a lot.”

“You’re practically drunk right now,” Isaac laughs, helping him off the workbench; Scott falls into him again, eyes only half-open. “Oof - okay, let’s just. Get you back to the hotel.”

“A lot, a lot, a lot,” Scott says. “Forever, okay?”

Isaac leads him out of the workshop one step at a time, and hides a smile to the crown of his head.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

*

Scott’s finally coherent enough to have a conversation well past three; he's in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin and Isaac’s watching him from the armchair, like he’s afraid Scott will faint again. Scott smiles. “I’m awake.”

“Awesome.”

“And I kissed you,” Scott says, because he - he remembers that. He remembers that really well, until the whole fainting thing. He opens up the covers so Isaac can crawl in with him.

“You did,” Isaac says, turning on his side. “For real, this time.”

There’s a hand span’s worth of distance between them that might as well be a canyon for as much as it feels; Isaac’s studying him, eyes flitting from his mouth to his cheekbone to his jaw, calm and easy, and when he meets Scott’s eyes, finally, he asks,

"Do you know the first time I wanted to kiss you?"

Scott shakes his head against the pillow and holds his body still when Isaac hesitates for another moment, before reaching out a tentative hand to skate it along Scott's forearm. Scott can hear the slide of the movement, the rustle of Isaac's fingers dragging across his skin, and he watches the hair on his arm stand on end.

"Remember the night of the lacrosse game?" Isaac says, and Scott starts, too caught up in the fingers wrapping around his wrist to remember there's a point to this. "When - when you told me there were too many people in Beacon Hills who needed you for you to run?"

Scott doesn't look up from his wrist. He smiles ruefully. "That was two years ago."

"Yeah, well." Isaac shrugs. "What'd I tell you?"

Scott looks at him. "That you didn't have anyone."

Isaac gives a slow nod. His hand drifts lazily upward, curling and knuckle-dragging its way along Scott's arm until he runs the pad of his index finger featherlight over the angle of Scott's jaw. "I wanted to say I needed you. And then I was - I was packing later, and I stopped and, and I thought about, like. Needing you. And not - not in a bad way, not where I was dependent on it, but a part of it. I wanted you around. And, y'know, I figured maybe you wanted me around too, for more than just the werewolf stuff -"

"I did," Scott interrupts. His palm rests at the center of Isaac's chest, and the heart beating through his sweater and his skin and bones is a familiar, steady march. "I really did."

Isaac smiles briefly, face half-hidden by the pillow under his head. He says, "I don't know, Scott, you turned out to be one of the only people whose never let me down."

Scott mouth quirks up. "You wanted to kiss me because I was dependable?"

"No, I wanted to kiss you because you were hot," Isaac says with a thoughtful frown that makes Scott laugh.

"I liked you because I knew you were good."

Scott’s smile fades, and cups Isaac’s jaw with one hand, then the curve of his shoulder, and he pushes, rolls them until he’s sliding a leg between Isaac’s and kissing him, just once.

It's nothing like how it was in the apple orchard - neither of them are laughing, this time around, and Scott's hyper-aware of the moment, like his senses are on overdrive in an effort to catalogue it all for later: the nudge of Isaac's thigh to his hip, the way Scott's lower half is pressing down, a solid weight that has Isaac make a noise in his throat - a sigh hidden at Scott's mouth, and the barest hint of a moan underneath that.

Scott breaks away, bumps their noses together and opens his eyes. Isaac's arm is folded over, hand curled in against his lips, and he's got his teeth set on his thumbnail - not biting, just a distracted gesture as he and Scott look at each other. Scott sees a flash of tongue peek out, and then Isaac drops his hand, reaches forward to hold on loosely to the front of Scott's shirt.

"I don't think we can go back to normal after this," Isaac says, and it's comes out mostly like an offer to forget, to go back to how things have been for so long, but Scott won't take it. He's tired of normal, tired of waiting for the right moment, waiting for the big talk, waiting for later always later, and of dancing around each other in an endless frustrating tango when there's nothing stopping them anymore but themselves.

He settles a hand low on Isaac's waist, fingers spreading and tucking under the hem of his top and Isaac arches in response, just enough for Scott to register the movement. He sits up, knees bracketing Isaac's thigh, smooths his palm up Isaac's side and dips over his chest to feel the tremble there, the coiled tight way Isaac's holding his breath.

Scott tells him, "Who says I want us to?"

*

"I miss Scott, he won't answer my texts. What are you doing?"

“Right now? Already regretting buying a disposable phone and giving you the number.” Danny shoves his phone against his ear with his shoulder, wraps a towel around his waist and hops on the sink. "He's sleeping. Cuddled up with Lahey last I checked. I think Lydia's waking them up now. And I need to take a shower."

"I have no one to cuddle," Stiles mourns.

"And I have to take a shower but apparently neither of us is getting what we want today."

":((((((((((" Stiles says.

Danny picks under his fingernails, mutters, "God, you are so annoying. I’ll hug you when I see you okay? Big hug. Cuddly hug."

"Hm," Stiles ponders this. "You do have nice arms. They're seriously cuddling? Is it cute?"

Danny lifts off the counter, carefully opens the bathroom door and tiptoes across the room to open the unlocked adjoining door and, yep, they're still knocked out. Lydia's in there already, and sees Danny, mimes eating and then points at him. "Sausage," he whispers, rolls his eyes and closes the door when she smirks at him.

"Very cute," Danny says to Stiles. "Vomit-inducing cute. And I have great arms, Stilinski, bite your tongue.”

"Bite it for me," Stiles says.

"So annoying."

Danny pauses.

"Maybe later," he tells Stiles, and hangs up.

*

When Scott wakes, it's to Isaac curled up behind him; he's got his head resting on Isaac's arm under him, the other thrown loose over Scott's waist. Lydia is standing in front of him, dressed and smiling. She nods down at Isaac's sleeping form. "That finally happened then?"

Scott doesn't pick up his head. "Mm. Where's Danny?"

"Shower." She slips her hair over her shoulder. "I'm getting breakfast for us before we check out. Want anything specific?"

"Bacon," Scott says. And: "Let me tell them myself?"

Lydia's smile goes soft at that - less teasing, more fond. "Of course, sweetheart," she says, and the endearment comes out with none of its usually malice. Scott narrows his eyes suspiciously.

"What have you done with our Lydia?"

Lydia crosses her arms, smiles closed-mouthed in response. "Are you happy?"

"Yeah," Scott answers, immediate.

She waits a beat, asks even softer: "Are you in love with him?"

"Wouldn't mind it," Scott says, and Lydia nods once.

"You know," and she purses her lips now and stands. "You should take Allison and Stiles out to dinner, when we get there."

"Sure," Scott agrees. "Why?"

"Because they figured it out before any of us. Before you." She gives him a considering look and then adds snappishly, "Jesus, Scott, you know how many awkwardly moments they had to sit through with you two? They deserve compensation," but she's still smiling, a little, and Scott grins back.

"There she is."

Lydia's rounding the edge of his and Isaac's bed, almost out of his periphery because he still won't move, when he calls to her. She takes a step back so he can see her better and he says, "Love you, Martin."

Lydia perks up, simultaneously pleased and smug - Of course you do - and blows him a kiss.

"Bacon," she says, with finality. "Lots of bacon."

*

They leave Ann Arbor on the fifteenth; there’s only one more trip - the Hudson River Monster in Poughkeepsie - about a ten hour drive away. Danny stops at a gas station when they get there, and there's a diner right across the street; they're all pretty hungry and - right, after a year of decidedly not touching Isaac with any real intent, Scott kind of can’t stop: slides in too close when they get to their booth, knocks a knee against his when he’s picking out something to order. The waitress hits on Lydia, and then gives them free dessert, and Scott’s digging through apple pie à la mode when Isaac’s hand lands on his thigh.

“Hey, can I have some,” he digs his spoon into a scoop of vanilla the same time his hand slides up; Scott’s holding his own spoon mid-air, melted ice cream dripping onto the table. He's. Confused. Isaac’s hand feels like it’s directly connected to some place low in Scott’s groin, rubbing out a gentle, pooling ache and Scott. Scott is just not prepared for this.

He says, “Um,” and pointedly tips his head towards Lydia and Danny.

Isaac smiles, and draws a feather-light outline of his dick through his jeans.

Scott lets his spoon clatter onto his plate, and he plants his elbows on the table, buries his face in his hands and lets out a shaky breath. Isaac squeezes suddenly, drags the heel of his palm up and Scott jerks forward, laughs, and slides out of the booth as quickly as possible. “Bathroom. Have to - bathroom.”

He can hear Isaac laughing at the table the whole way there.

Scott's trembling when he makes it into the men’s bathroom, breathing through the ache in his dick that's turned just this side of uncomfortable; it’s a tiny bathroom, only two stalls, and Scott’s leaning against the wall opposite the sinks when the door swings open. He doesn't have to look up to know it's Isaac. Doesn't have to look up to feel the giddy smugness radiating off him.

He does anyway, says Jerk on a smile. Isaac locks the door behind him, casually walks over, all square shoulders and wide chest and never-ending limbs and Scott’s lungs might as well have dropped off the face of the earth for as useful as they are to him right now. "Your stupid - leather jacket."

Isaac laughs, this time around, kicks the toe of Scott's Converse with his boot. He's right there - and Scott can see them in the row of mirrors on the opposite wall, see himself, flushed and chest rising and falling without any discernible pattern. Isaac places a hand on the wall by his head, lashes lowered and mouth pulled into a half-smile.

"I could smell you from out there," he says, nonchalant as anything. "You seem kind of," he takes a breath. "Tense."

Scott slides a hand to the small of Isaac's back until he's close enough that their mouths drag lightly. "So do something about it."

For a few quiet moments, they just stand there, smiling dopily at each other in a mildly sketchy public restroom. Isaac's idly twirling the string of Scott's hoodie around his finger with his free hand and Scott's playing with the hem of his shirt and he wonders when this all started to feel so familiar.

Not - not the sketchy restroom bit - Scott can do without that, really. But just - this: Isaac's palm falling heavy on his jaw, Isaac's smile just before Scott closes his eyes, the sweet, hushed laugh he lets out when Scott's mouth parts on cue

(Instinctive innate unthinking);

And Isaac's hands are suddenly hot on his hips, pulling at the cloth of his hoodie, his shirt in an effort to find the skin underneath. Scott pushes off the wall - one arm loped around Isaac's neck, the other slung low across his waist - and walks them backwards towards the nearest stall.

Isaac's laughing from the moment they begin to stumble - I already locked the door, who else is coming in - but it's like -

"Thrill of it," Scott says, grinning as he holds Isaac against the wall of the stall, his back to the open door to keep it in place (Isaac's a lot better about small spaces these days, but testing it out right now by boxing them in seems counterintuitive). There's graffiti all over the stall - right next to Isaac's head is a Fuck the government in purple Sharpie and underneath that a Pac fucked the government? and Isaac playfully chomps his teeth in front of Scott's nose to grab his attention.

"Hey. Is this a library?"

"Dunno, depends how many jokes I can make about spreading things open."

Isaac snorts, brows jumping up. "Scott McCall," he says, and he sounds impressed.

"Hey, kiss me," Scott says, impatient, and Isaac kisses him, and they stutter breathless laughs into each other's mouths until it all gradually fades away - the awkwardness, the stifled giggling and hesitant pawing shifts into something more languid, tongues and teeth and quiet sighs - and Isaac drops a hand to the Scott's belt, slides a finger under it and tugs.

"I'd," Scott breaks away, ducks to Isaac's neck to speak: "I think I like you too much to ask you to kneel on a grody public restroom floor."

Isaac hitches an inhale at that, like he wants to laugh but there isn't enough air in his lungs. "I have no idea where this floor has been," he agrees. And then, with his lips at the shell of Scott's ear, "We can get to that later, anyway?"

Scott nods, hands spanning Isaac's stomach, and Isaac muses, “There was this - this thing I'd been kinda curious about, now that we’re talking about not touching the floor."

Scott picks his head up and blinks; he feels stupefied, almost, dumbstruck and dizzy but he manages a, "Hm?"

Isaac raises a brow. "Have you been working out?"

A wrinkle pulls at Scott's forehead, and before he has a chance to respond - duh - Isaac's reaching up until his hands fold over the stall side behind him. He lifts himself easily - Scott has never appreciated the super strength that comes from lycanthropy more in this moment probably, definitely, it's top three at least - and Scott shuffles in automatically, gets his arms around Isaac's waist as his ankles hook together behind Scott's back.

"Is that all?" Scott asks, like he's totally not losing it at the possibilities this brings, and Isaac lets his arms drop; his hands reach out to adjust the open collar of Scott's plaid button-up. "I'm not even breaking a sweat dude, c'mon."

"I know," his eyes are focuses somewhere near Scott's clavicle; a finger glides across his collarbone, dips when it reaches his sternum, stops when it hits the first done up button. "This'll come in handy later."

Scott peers down. "My shirt?"

"Position," Isaac says lightly, and. Right. Okay. He laughs and drops his legs so he's standing again. "I literally couldn't care less about your shirt unless it's like," he makes a gesture Scott really hopes means unless it's not on you because you're naked. He pauses and then maneuvers them forward so Scott's pushed with his back to the open door now. It clatters against the wall for a moment and Isaac bites his lip. "You like me too much?"

"You got me hot and bothered so you could talk to me about my feelings?"

Isaac laughs, hushed, and nuzzles a kiss to the curve of Scott's neck, but doesn't respond; he does, however, drag a hand down so he's lazily grinding the heel of his palm to Scott's dick, which is. Really unfair. Scott's head thumps onto Isaac's shoulder as he exhales a quiet fuck and Isaac's cheek feels warm from where it's resting at Scott's temple. He's looking down at his hand, body still in that way where Scott knows Isaac's trying to focus on the supersensory details -

(Scott does it too, sometimes - Stiles said once it's like when a dog's ears prick up when it hears something)

- trying to catalogue the way Scott's pants open-mouthed into the crook of Isaac's neck, muffling sounds he's trying so hard not to make because the door might be locked but they're still in public. It's like when they were at the table earlier, only it gets a thousand times more intense when Isaac exhales - this gust of breath like the bottom's dropped out - and the shoulder Scott's face is still tucked into pushes heavy against his collarbone to hold him in place.

Isaac finally - finally fucking finally - gets his buttonfly open, and he's yanking Scott's jeans and underwear down past his hips and spitting into his hand and curling it around Scott's dick; Scott takes a shuddering breath in and asks, "Do you know the first time I wanted to kiss you?" like they never left the hotel a couple days ago and are just picking the conversation back up, like he hasn't stopped thinking about it since.

And - he hasn't, really, has gone over everything between them during the past two years that didn't have some smirking-but-well-meaning third party observer involved to knock them off center and into this no man's land where Scott was suddenly conscious of the way they touched each other because everyone commented on the way they touched each other.

(He bites a whimper into Isaac's throat, digs sharp nails into the small of his back that only makes Isaac jack faster.)

It's like one of those flip book drawings, where the quicker he turns the pages the clearer the picture gets, sees it all one by one: the first time Isaac cooked dinner for them, smiling small and self-conscious and rubbing the nape of his neck when Melissa went back for seconds; Isaac saying I'll see you at home after visiting Scott at Deaton's clinic four months after that, and then catching himself in surprise before his shoulders relaxed with an understated joy Scott still can't forget. Finding out the pack could move away from Beacon Hills and have lives outside of their hometown now that it wasn't buried under death and destruction. Breathing a sigh of relief when he and Isaac both got into UCSD on partial scholarships and got assigned as roommates anyway, because the pack being on opposite ends of the country was gonna be harder on Scott than he thought and it'd be a comfort to hold onto a piece of it with someone else.

All the quiet moments in between, important only in the sheer day-to-day routine of it all - nights in doing homework in the kitchen, bringing Melissa dinner on her late days, running in the woods together full moon after full moon, two Christmases and several birthdays and a dozen Netflix marathons and falling asleep in the same bed because moving wasn't a concept either of them wanted to explore.

("Tell me," Isaac says, Jesus, Scott, tell me, and their teeth clack together when they kiss. Scott lifts up onto his toes and buries a hand in Isaac's hair and sighs, "Homecoming -")

And Homecoming senior year, which really did suck, but they tried to do normality for once, his pack, they did, tried to have one high school experience not tainted with blood. They'd gone stag together, the six of them; Isaac had fixed Scott's tie in his room, fingers accidentally brushing along his neck as he folded down the collar and something swooped low and wild in Scott's stomach, Scott remembers.

Isaac was in front of him, and Scott and Allison had broken up for what would be the last time a few months before. He didn't miss her in a way that hurt anymore, could talk to her and laugh with her and be around her without drowning in bittersweet nostalgia and it was finally okay, all of it. Even danced with her once, before an onslaught of movie monsters turned real life crashed the dance right after the Homecoming court was crowned, led by Peter Hale - and seriously, a beacon focal point under the high school? Who knew marathon-ing Buffy would give them all the oddest sense of déja vú.

They made it out, somehow - torn and bloodied and bruised but alive, all of them. Peter Hale was lying dead in a destroyed gymnasium, a dozen creatures wheezing their last breaths with him - and then his dad showed up with a bunch of other men in suits, and Scott - Scott didn’t have an explanation his dad wanted to hear anymore. He’d thrown his hands up, said I don’t want to know what you are and walked right out of that gym with the FBI - walked out on Scott and never came back after.

The pack limped back to Scott's, where Melissa, Chris and the Sheriff were waiting (the only parents, even now, who know everything). They'd bandaged up the worst of the injuries, called the other parents, and Scott didn’t know it at the time but he’d spend senior year free of hospital rooms to visit and funerals to plan.

They got home that night, and his tie couldn't be salvaged but Isaac fixed it again anyway, stood right next to him in the living room while Melissa gathered the six of them up to commemorate the night with a photo. Stiles hadn’t strayed more than a foot away from him that and Scott hadn’t wanted him to, held him close on his right with Isaac on his left and when Melissa said, "My sweetheart, saving the world." Stiles laughed shakily next to him, ruffling his hair, and Scott mumbled back Just the West Coast, ma, c'mon, it's not a big deal -

And Isaac dug his fingers into Scott's waist, hard enough to make Scott's train of thought stumble into silence - a gentle reprimand, in Isaac's way, an it's okay to be proud of yourself. When he turned in the next moment to murmur teasingly, "My hero," Scott glanced at him, and then at his mouth and the megawatt smile there, even when the face surrounding it was covered in grime and dried blood and flecks of soot.

My hero and all joking aside, Scott never wanted to be anyone's hero, but the possessive curled around him intrinsically, crawled under his skin in the best possible way and, humming with anticipation, set up shop somewhere in his ribcage to wait.

(Scott comes with his toes curling in his Converse and Isaac's name in his mouth; Isaac kisses him again, catches his bottom lip, and Scott can feel the furrow of his brow, the triple time beat of his heart heavy and hard like a kick drum in his chest; he clutches at the lapels of Isaac's stupid leather jacket and dizzily thinks Yours and hopes the gasping laugh he buries under the sharp line of Isaac's jaw says exactly what he needs it to.)

*

Danny’s staring at Scott’s melted, gooey ice cream and soggy apple pie when they sit back down.

“You were in there twenty minutes.”

“Stomach ache,” Isaac says easily, and Lydia spins her phone on the tabletop, glances up and then back down.

“You have a massive hickey on your neck,” she says.

Isaac leans against the wall of the booth, catches Scott’s eye and smiles.

*

Scott’s in love with the the Hudson River Monster.

It’s single-handedly the most adorable thing ever - a giant manatee-like creature, Scott’s not sure what the big deal is, really - the River Monster mostly just minds his own business and expects everyone else to do the same.

To be honest, after the whole fairy thing, Scott is totally cool with basically going on a field trip, and now he’s sitting on a dry log on the river bank, watching the River Monster’s nose come up every so often for air. He’s not so much speaking as he is injecting his thoughts into their head but Scott can’t even be freaked out by it, he’s just so cute.

Isaac’s next to him on the log, and so is Lydia - Danny’s inches closer, reaching out to pat his snout - gets half his shirt wet in the process when the River Monster rolls over onto his back. His head is as big as Danny’s torso and Danny coos, “You’re not a monster, are you?”

“I want to swim with him,” Scott says. “I want to take him home.”

He really wants to take the giant manatee home.

Can’t, Scott McCall.

Scott frowns. “Why not?”

Giant manatee has family to provide for. Giant manatee wife and kids. Can't pay underwater mortgage if giant manatee in California

“I’ll pay for all of it,” Scott says, and Isaac stifles a soft laugh next to him.

Besides how will giant manatee get there? So much land separates us.

"A true Romeo and Juliet for our times," Lydia snarks, even though her eyes go sorta soft when the giant manatee comes up for air again. "He is pretty cute."

“Alright,” Danny shakes out his wet hand, pulls his soaked shirt away from his chest; he’s grinning, and Scott is glad Stiles put this one on the list, even if it was just a detour. “Let’s get to Allison’s apartment.”

Scott plants his cheeks on his hands and frowns harder. Isaac laughs, louder this time, and tugs on his arm. “C’mon, Scott.”

Scott rises, and lifts one hand. “Bye, giant manatee.”

Goodbye, Scott McCall, the giant manatee says.

Scott's still upset when he gets in the backseat of the Oldsmobile, and Isaac follows him in, laughs when Scott crosses his arms and gazes out towards the river. Danny starts the car and pulls out of their parking spot; Isaac scoots along the length of the backseat, curls an arm around Scott's shoulders and hides a smile in the crook of Scott's neck.

"Don't be sad."

"I'm not," Scott says, and he gently nudges Isaac in the ribs as the car rumbles along but Isaac ignores it and shifts even closer. He reaches up with his other and swipes a thumb over Scott's bottom lip.

"Your mouth says otherwise."

"Gross," Danny comments from the driver's side. "Keep your hands to yourself, Lahey."

Scott tries to hold back a grin and Isaac says softly, "Are you smiling? Is that a smile? I'm sorry we couldn't fit a giant manatee in the trunk, dude. I'd give you all the giant manatees if I could."

"I wouldn't cage him up," Scott says. "You know? It'd just be like Free Willy, after they freed him. What if he never sees the ocean?"

"All the giant manatees," Isaac says, and Danny thumps his head on the steering wheel.

"This is somehow worse than your unrequited love boners."

*

Stiles tacklehugs Scott in the carpeted hallway of Allison’s apartment the second the door opens, and Scott lets himself fall. He lands on his bag, and Stiles lands on him, and hugs him until everyone’s stepped over their bodies and into the apartment.

“I missed you, Scotty,” Stiles tells him, and Scott tucks his face into the crook of Stiles’ neck and grins.

He clears his throat and says, “So. Me and Isaac -”

“Oh God, did you finally figure that whole deal out?” Stiles asks him, but he sounds happy. “Danny said you were cuddling. Have you been kissing him?”

“Maybe.”

Stiles hums against his hair. “Is it nice?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, muffled.

“Do you wanna talk about the trip?” Stiles asks, rolling over until they’re on their backs in the middle of the hallway. When Scott looks at him, Stiles isn’t smiling.

“Selene told me what she talked to you about -”

“No,” Scott shakes his head and sits up; Stiles follows suit. They’re facing each other, knees touching where they sit cross-legged. “I don’t want to do anything with the other beacons unless we have to.”

“Okay,” Stiles says carefully. “But you know I would come back in a heartbeat if you needed me to?”

“Of course I know that.”

He’s wearing glasses; Scott has no idea when he got them in the two months Stiles has been here - the first spent camping out at Allison’s apartment, the second spent in his dorm at school - and it makes Scott squirm. “It really - it doesn’t suck without you around back home, but it’s like - eerie sometimes.”

“It doesn’t suck? You’re supposed to be pining for me,” Stiles pushes at his shoulder, feigning offense. “Weeping and wearing a black veil and shit.”

Scott laughs, tugs on his wrist and pulls until Stiles is falling forward into another hug.

“We’re gonna be happy,” Scott says. “That’s all I want. No fighting, no death. Just - us, being happy.”

“You seem pretty happy with Lahey,” Stiles says, and then, so quiet it takes Scott a moment to process it: “Don’t replace me, okay?”

“Stiles.”

“I know - you're around him all the time, and it’s different with him,” Stiles says. "But -"

“Dude, you don’t get it. You’re the only person I’ve ever been sure about from day one.”

“Jeez, Scott, not even your mother,” is the sardonic response, but Scott sits back to look him in the eye.

“I’m serious.” Stiles glasses are a little wonky, and Scott straightens them out, brushes carpet lint off his shoulders. “Doesn’t matter how far apart we are. Doesn’t matter where you go. I’ll always be able to find you.”

Stiles studies him for a moment, and then claps his palms to Scott’s cheeks and squeezes so his mouth pushes together.

“That would be really creepy if you weren’t talking about your preternatural ability to memorize my stench.”

“Idiot,” Scott says fondly, and Stiles smiles, and smacks a kiss to his forehead.

“Love you,” he says, letting go.

He stands, holds out a hand to help Scott up; Scott smiles when he rises, and knocks their shoulders together. “I love you, too.”

*

(Scott kisses Allison’s temple when he hugs her, murmurs You know what I look like when I want someone, huh? and she pulls away quick, arms still around him, not-quite smile on her face. The others are already inside, telling Stiles about their trip - and Allison finds Isaac in the middle of it, laughing on the sofa with his arms around Danny’s shoulders from where Danny’s sitting on the floor as he shows Stiles his disposable phone.

And then Allison’s looking at Scott again, and her mouth twists into a familiar little smile, eyes crinkled in the corners.

“Good job, Scott,” she says.)

*

They don’t get to spend much time together, the six of them - there's just enough room in the schedule for one group dinner out and and then a night in camped on Allison’s sofa, watching scary movies on her Netflix account; then on the sixteenth, Lydia buys herself a plane ticket back home like she said she would, and one for Danny, too. He tells Scott while he's packing up what little they’d taken with them, smiles and hands him the keys to the Oldsmobile.

“You and Isaac can just drive it all the way to La Jolla and then take it to Caltech on a free weekend, but please be careful?”

"Are you sure, dude? I mean, what if I get pulled over or something?" Scott looks down at the keys in his hand. “You start the twenty-second, anyway, there’s definitely enough time for all three of us to get back.”

"Uh, yeah, either I get to my dorm ahead of schedule or I take backseat to Isaac And Scott's Love Fest for hours on end, and as cute as you both are, I do not want to see either of your dicks."

He pauses.

"Or my car - my car shouldn't see your dicks either.”

“No exposed dicks in the car!" Stiles calls as he walks by, holding out a fist that Danny bumps without looking.

"Sure," Scott says amicably.

Danny squints at him.

“I’m going to regret this,” he says, and Scott just smiles.

"Let's get you to the airport."

*

From: Isaac
Got out of shower, where’d you go???

From: Scott
Outside. I have Danny's keys all to myself - u up for a joy ride?

From: Isaac
:)

*

They don't even make it out of the parking space.

"I thought - " Isaac laughs, shaky, and reaches up to tug on the back of Scott’s shirt, "I thought you said joy ride?"

Scott picks his mouth up from Isaac’s neck, hunches over to look at him before he leans backward to rest on the dashboard. They’re sitting in the passenger seat - or. Isaac’s sitting in the passenger seat, and Scott’s sitting in his lap, feet going numb from keeping his weight on his thighs.

(Trying to grind down into Isaac’s lap with his knees digging into Scott's thighs, bunched up to accommodate his stupidly long legs? Little bit difficult. Scott has noticed this in the twenty minutes they’ve been out here. Mostly he’s frustrated that only his shirt has managed to get unbuttoned so far, but Scott is a great believer in never giving up when the odds are stacked against you, so they can just keep trying ‘til they get it right.)

“I lied, I just wanted to get you out here; Stiles keeps walking in whenever I try to kiss you,” Scott dances from side to side and says casually, "And it's like a joy ride."

Isaac curls a hand to his mouth, the long sleeve of his pajama top pulled up past his knuckles, and he smiles, and it’s really cute in this way where it makes Scott want to cuddle him in the seat instead of rut on top of him until one or both of them comes - but he doesn’t, just cups Isaac’s face, kisses him slow until Isaac's groaning softly and holding onto his hips, pushing Scott down the same time he shifts up. Scott sighs - a hitched, amused sound, folds his arms around the headrest and wraps his fingers around his wrist.

He bumps their noses. “Hey, so. You think we can like. Wait?”

“...For?" Isaac drags the word out, bemused, fingertips skimming featherlight along Scott's ribs and Scott surpresses a shiver; Isaac sets his teeth on his bottom lip, lets it roll out until his mouth’s parted. “Oh,” he murmurs. “Right.”

“Not - not that I don’t want to - just -”

“Not in a car,” Isaac finishes with a smile, hands fitting to Scott’s thighs.

“Or on the sofa at my ex-girlfriend’s apartment,” Scott says, somewhat ruefully. “I just want. I want a whole day, dude,” he runs a thumb down the slope of Isaac’s nose, drifts over a cheekbone. Presses in at the corner of his mouth and lifts. “To figure things out. Alone.”

“Well,” Isaac says, lips twitching into a smile. “The mechanics of it are pretty simple -”

“Shut up,” Scott laughs lightly. “You know what I mean. I wanna be able to...”

And he gets stuck on whatever it was he was going to say, because a patch of the waxing moon above them streams in through the windshield and lights Isaac’s collarbone up, so of course Scott grazes a nail along his clavicle just to see what kind of reaction he'll get. Isaac shuts his eyes for the briefest of moments before they open again, hooded and aimed at Scott’s mouth, smug half-smile in place.

“Look less like you wanna eat me,” he says lightly.

Scott bares his teeth, reaches down until his fingers wrap around the seat lever and yanks it up, shoves at Isaac's chest simultaneously so the seat flies back. Isaac makes a cut off yelp that blends into breathless laughter. "Oh my God, you could've done that half an hour ago."

"Forgot." Scott shrugs, stretches his left leg as much as he can to shake out the burning feeling in his calf and maneuvers his right leg until its knee is planted between Isaac's thighs, pressed right up to his groin. "Was kinda preoccupied, dude."

It's still awkward, position-wise, even though they're nearly horizontal now. Scott's using Isaac's shoulders as leverage and he's sure he's gonna get the sickest charley horse if he moves wrong, but Isaac's tugging distractingly on the front of his jeans and rolling minutely against his thigh, and Scott can't give less of a fuck about the state of muscle cramps at the moment.

"You're tall," Scott admonishes, words muffled by Isaac's mouth. It’s like, three inches, but three inches of height can be a lot when you’re in a car.

Isaac smiles unwittingly. "That isn't news, McCall."

"Different context, Lahey," he says, and he's halfway to another grin when Isaac decides to lick into his mouth instead. His hands won't stop moving either - they push past Scott's unbuttoned shirt to palm at the naked shoulder underneath, brush fingertips down the length of his chest, clutch at his side, then his ass to haul him closer.

Scott shifts again, scoots until he's turning onto his side, back jammed against the door, and Isaac curls into him in the same movement, chasing him; their legs tangle and bunch together at the floor of the passenger seat, then Scott all but shoves a thigh between Isaac's, smooths a hand under Isaac's pajama top to flatten, insistent and heavy, at the small of his back.

Scott kisses a path to Isaac neck - opposite where he'd done the shot a last week. He's too impatient for the pretense of a tease, wrenches the collar down and bites hard enough to make a mark, sucks until he knows it'll bruise and then licks across it to feel for his handiwork. (It'll last the week, at least - and being an alpha has so many perks sometimes. Sexy perks. Maybe-a-bit-possessive perks, but. Whatever, it's all good.)

Isaac's panting staccato breaths at the curve of Scott's throat, face tucked between Scott's cheek and the headrest, grinding hard enough into him that there's barely any space for them to move. He mumbles something a moment later Scott doesn't catch, and Scott nudges him with his nose. "What? Wait -"

Isaac lets out trembling exhale, pulls back enough to look at him. “I’m,” his palm’s hot on Scott’s stomach, and he tips their foreheads together. "I know we're not actual wolves - it's the - shape the shifter in us takes, or whatever, but is it - is it different?" He still hasn’t managed to catch his breath, and when Scott keeps on staring with a knitted brow, he ducks his head. "Like, sex. With -"

"Oh. I wouldn't know? Never slept with anyone besides Allison," Scott tells him. "And she's wicked with a bow and arrow, but. Human. I mean - in the beginning, it was sorta hard not to shift, but I think I was so scared of like, accidentally biting her that it just. Made it easier to control."

"You've always had more self-restraint than me," Isaac says, and Scott runs an idle thumb along the hickey on Isaac's shoulder, catches his eye.

"Yeah, not exactly."

Isaac breaks into a smile, bites down on it and it wobbles nervously as he twirls the hem of Scott's shirt between his fingers, says carefully, "I've never. Um."

He hesitates, lifts his eyes to the ceiling of the car as his lips quirk up at the ends, and Scott needs the clarification:

“Never as in you’ve never slept with someone who was also incidentally a wereteen or -”

“I never talked to anyone long enough before Derek bit me, and afterwards sort of sucked too until eleventh grade, which was also coincidentally when I decided carrying a massive torch for you would be tons of fun,” he says this all in a rush, offhand.

Scott is embarrassed to admit it surprises him, mostly because Isaac sometimes gets this self-congratulatory look on his face when he stares at people, all I could definitely make you wanna beg for it. Scott had just assumed - which he shouldn't have, really, he knows better - but he's been on the receiving end of that look countless times, thought it was Isaac's default expression before they were friends, even; one of their classmates was moaning about a history exam once, Scott remembers, and Isaac wasn't even registering the conversation properly but he was still there, unruffled and vaguely mocking, staring her down like he’d been in the fucking desert for weeks and she was nothing but an ice cold glass of water. It's intimidating.

Scott’s blurts out before he can stop himself, “So - you and Allison didn't - ?”

“No,” Isaac glances at him, away, and back again. “Once. We - once. But." He opens his mouth, pauses. Closes it. “Nevermind.”

They don't talk about this. They never talked about it. For one, Scott didn't have a right to ask Isaac or Allison about something that wasn't his business and for another - for another, high school break-ups were awkward enough. He didn't want to make it worse by alienating two of the people he cared about most, too, just because they kindofdated when they were seventeen.

Still, Scott presses on gently: “What?”

Isaac’s smile turns wry. “It was like... incomplete, man, I don’t know. We were really weird for awhile, me and her. I think a lot it of it - most of it - was trying to navigate around each other - navigate around each other in relation to you and,” he laughs, and closes his eyes as he shakes his head. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation now, in a car, with your hand that close to my dick.”

Scott lifts the hand in question and wiggles his fingers. “I can sit in the driver’s side,” he offers, and smiles when Isaac’s arm goes around him in silent objection. “I’m sorry. It was weird. Like you said. You know that - at Deaton’s, junior year, when we were trying to find our parents, and he paired you guys up? It was,” Scott stumbles over his thoughts, “it was so freakin’ low on my list of priorities, but I knew you and Allison had been circling around each other and I - I looked at you two and I felt -”

“Jealous?”

“Selfish,” Scott says on a laugh, adjusting his legs. “I didn’t - I wanted to hold onto you both. I didn't get it, but I wanted you both.” Isaac’s watching him, hand curled up to his mouth again. “So maybe that was when it started.”

“What -” Isaac’s voice is soft, barely audible, and he clears his throat. “What started?”

Scott thinks about what he told Luz, knocks Isaac's hand away gently to tap the pad of his thumb to Isaac’s bottom lip. “There was just always something happening, and it felt like it was never gonna stop back then. And I couldn’t hit the pause button on all the bullshit going on long enough to think about why -”

Scott stops. Offers up a tentative smile that fades away just as quickly. “To think about why you meant you so much to me. And."

“And,” he inhales - big, because he'll lose confidence if he stops now, isn't sure if he'll be able to find it again if he does: "And you're the only wolf in my pack - you’re one of my best friends, dude, and I know that you snore in your sleep and you let your Cap'n Crunch get a little soggy before you eat it and you'd do anything to keep my mom safe and sometimes I just really wanna tell you that I love you. And I don't," he closes his eyes, turns his face in so his nose is shoved into Isaac's clavicle.

"I don't know if the way I do has changed at all now that we're actually doing - this, but it doesn't feel all that different to me."

Isaac doesn't say anything for awhile. He lies still - not tense, exactly, but there's a thoughtfulness to the hold of his shoulder, the way his fingers draw lazy patterns along the bare skin of Scott's bicep where his shirt has slipped down.

Then he mouths at the shell of Scott's ear and asks, "Are you sure you don't wanna fuck me in the backseat?" and the unexpectedness of it wrangles a laugh out of Scott.

When he opens his eyes, Isaac's watches him, the teasing quality to his words gone. "Are we?" he says. "Actually doing this?"

"I'm game if you are."

"So. When we get back it'll be, like. Going out to eat and sleeping together and watching movies -"

"We do all that stuff already," Scott points out, and Isaac lifts a shoulder, quick and honest:

"Yeah, but I couldn't kiss you." His hand is on Scott's hip, fingers pattern-drawing there, now. "This is more of a boyfriend kind of thing?"

A smile works its way to Scott's mouth, twitchy like it doesn't know how happy to be just yet. "Yeah?"

"If you want, Scott," Isaac says softly.

"I want - that. I really - I really want that," he touches Isaac's chin, repeats it again just in case it wasn't clear enough: "I like the word 'boyfriend.' That definitely works for me."

"Cool," Isaac says, and his eyes are a little droopy now, so Scott murmurs they should get back inside -

"I'm going to turn into one giant leg cramp if we stay in here any longer," and Isaac laughs. They sort themselves out - they're both still half-hard, but it's less of an all-out need at this point, feels enough to just link their hands together on the trek back to Allison’s apartment.

They don't say much when they get inside; lights are off, and Allison is asleep in her bedroom. Stiles is snoring from his spot on the sofa - they’ve been laying a ton of blankets down in the where the coffee table usually is to sleep, and Isaac's already in pajamas so he toes off his shoes, wiggles under the covers and watches Scott undress in the dark, iridescent eyes following the line of his body.

Scott drops down onto the living room floor, crawls over and cuddles up next to him; he’s drifting off when Isaac shuffles so they're face to face and kisses Scott soft and sweet, with eyes shut tight and fingers curling in his hair.

(The last thing Scott remembers before he falls asleep is the beat of their hearts thumping steadily on, together.)

*

They leave two days before the full moon - Allison makes them food so they won’t have to stop anywhere for a bit, and Stiles makes Scott promise to finally figure out the tablet Stiles got him for his birthday so he can download Skype on it - and by the time they make it to a secluded section of the Ozarks in Arkansas on the eighteenth, adrenaline has already begun to itch its way in their veins with the need to change.

The Harvest Moon hits the next day at seven in the morning, and they find a forest to run in in the dead of night, derail their excess energy with a game of tag that leaves them teasing each other - a brush of Scott's hand to Isaac's hip as he rushes past, a sharp hair tug from Isaac in retaliation before he dashes away because his legs might be longer than Scott's, but Scott's definitely faster.

Scott realizes at some point that it's gone suddenly quiet - eerily still, given that a few minutes ago he'd just heard Isaac laugh (Scott ambushed him, stuffed moss down the back of his shirt). He sniffs, confused, tries to catch a scent, but Isaac's everywhere. A twig snaps under Scott's foot and he calls out, "Lahey?" He waits, can only hear the shuffle of his own feet on the forest floor. "Dude, seriously, where are you?"

He hears a stifled laugh from the west, whips around with a smile. "Isaac, I know that's you. C'mon, I'm -"

Isaac blindsides him from the opposite direction, and Scott only has a moment to be suitably impressed by the mislead before he's being tackled to the ground. He's already laughing when he lands hard on his back, and the breath gets knocked out of him. Isaac's on top of him, a forearm planted in the dirt beside Scott's head and he's beaming, face human but teeth a touch too sharp.

Scott kisses him then - no use being a sore loser when there's more fun things to do, like reward his - Scott smiles against his mouth, chest tight and hands trembling in the best way - his boyfriend. Isaac smugly declares, "Gotcha, McCall," and then pushes off the ground to let himself up, holds out a hand for Scott.

He doesn’t even let Scott dust himself off once he stands, just crowds him forward until Scott's back hits a tree. "This game just got a hundred times better," Scott informs him happily, and they fall silent, standing there. His smile goes subdued, and he holds Isaac by the waist, tips is chin up in time to slant their mouths together.

Isaac gets a hand on his jaw when he breaks the kiss, takes a moment, and then another, and says, "I love you."

It's tentative, careful like the way his eyes track any change in Scott's expression. He's testing the waters, and it's getting easier, Scott thinks. To say it out loud.

"Yeah," he says softly. "I love you, too," and - he laughs, and ducks his head, doesn’t look back up even when Isaac pokes him in the stomach.

"Hey."

Scott makes a noncommittal sound, eyes still closed, and he wants to stay exactly like this for awhile. "What?"

"You're it."

Scott stumbles forward into empty air. He huffs, races off in the direction of the sound of rapidly snapping twigs and low hanging branches being brushed away. "Cheater!" he yells after Isaac, and all he gets in response is a bright, cheery laugh.

Scott glances upward through the canopy; they've still got a few hours before the moon rises. He looks ahead, now, and grins breathlessly. Pumps his legs faster over the forest floor.

Runs straight to where he feels at home.

*

Danny calls them a couple days later, when they’re parked in a field somewhere off the Interstate in New Mexico, both a little too tired to drive through the night. Scott's sitting on the edge of the trunk - they’ve folded down the back seat of the Oldsmobile so there’s an actual sleeping area, and he’s watching Isaac step carefully through weeds a few yards away from him.

He’s thwacking the grass with an errant tree branch he found, and Scott hears Danny say How’s my baby and I will end your lives if you and Scott fuck in my car.

Isaac whirls on heel, silently laughing, and Scott smiles at him in the dark.

“In the interest of full disclosure,” Isaac starts, whacking another weed down, “there may have been... a few blowjobs and like, one or five handies, but in our defense, the days before and after a full moon make your skin feel really itchy.”

Scott snorts that time, and Isaac shoots another look at him over his shoulder, smiling as he steps over a gnarled, overgrown root. “Car’s fine, by the way -”

“There’s itchy and there’s getting come stains on the upholstery, Lahey!” Danny all but screeches, and Isaac doubles over, arm wrapped around his stomach, absolutely fucking delighted.

“I promise you,” he says, straightening out and walking slowly towards Scott again. “There is little to no chance for stains.”

“Did you just make a joke about swallowing?” A pause. “God, I can’t even formulate a proper response to that other than an unfortunate, ‘I need to get laid.’”

Scott rubs his eyes with a fist, sits up and leans against the door frame. Danny adds, “When you say blowjobs, like - none of those happened while either of you were driving, right?”

“I don't think it's road head if you're at a standstill in bumper-to-bumper traffic, but don't quote me on that,” Isaac answers promptly, which isn’t even true, but Danny’s point blank, “You’re the worst,” afterwards is worth it.

Scott holds a hand out, palm up, wants Isaac near, but Isaac waggles the tree branch in Scott’s direction. Scott sighs, arches forward a little so his head doesn’t hit the roof, reaches up and over to pull off his shirt. He tosses it bunched up towards the front seat, flops back down and folds an arm over his eyes.

“I hope you know the only reason I'm letting this slide is ‘cause you're pack and I'm happy for you.”

“Uh-huh, love you, too,” Isaac sounds distracted, and Scott hears his footsteps shuffling across the grass get louder and louder until Isaac’s ducking into the back of the Oldsmobile and crawling over to him.

Danny says, “Seriously, though, Lahey. Don’t fuck in my car.”

“Yeah, yeah, I understand.” He’s on his stomach, propped up on his elbows, an arm folded across for balance so he can lean above Scott with the phone still pressed to his ear. “Sex bad, vehicular-situated abstinence good.”

Scott lifts his arm off his face, reaches up and combs a hand through Isaac’s hair. Isaac says, “I have to go, man. Scott’s not wearing a shirt,” and hangs up.

Scott laughs and hauls him in.

(They pass the Welcome to California sign the day before Isaac turns nineteen.)

*

From: Scott
Almost homeeeee :D

From: Melissa
Out getting groceries. Can't wait to see you sweetheart :)

*

They toss their backpacks on the sofa as soon as they get inside the house early evening on the twenty-first, and they don't bother to flop down on it too, even though Scott feels like he's going to pass out any minute; he's hungry, is the thing, and he and Isaac head straight for the kitchen.

The fridge is a disappointingly bare bones, probably because his mom doesn't eat as much as two teenaged boys and they've been gone for three weeks. He shoots Isaac a frown when he closes the door, shuffles across the titles to back him against the kitchen counter and moans pathetically into his neck.

"Starved," he rasps, and Isaac laughs lightly.

"Your mom'll be back soon."

“She’s not here right now,” Scott says, and Isaac’s nods slowly, like Scott’s hit his head or something.

“That is what her text said.”

“Not here as in we’re alone.” Scott pushes his hands under Isaac cardigan, runs them down to clutch the back of Isaac’s thighs, lift him up to sit on the kitchen counter. Isaac sways into him, reaches up to curl a hand over Scott's shoulder.

"Yeah," he says, preoccupied, eyes locked somewhere around Scott's mouth. His index finger draws an indiscernible pattern into the bare skin peeking out from the collar of Scott's shirt and a shiver runs up Scott's spine and they are going to have sex really, really soon.

“We’re gonna have sex soon,” Scott says, just so he has a completely definitive answer here. “Right? Like. Sex, sex. Condoms and lube and sexy music -”

“Oh my God,” Isaac snorts, claps a hand over his mouth. “Shut up, yes.”

Scott knits his brows together, whines and makes his sincerest puppy face that he hopes translates into When? “We move into the dorm tomorrow,” Isaac reminds him, maneuvering his hand enough to drag the pads of his fingers over Scott’s bottom lip. He smiles. “Sexy music?”

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” Scott sing-songs with a shimmy, hips knocking back and forth between Isaac’s knees, and Isaac cradles his face.

“Dork,” he says on a laugh. “Your accent is atrocious.”

Scott brushes his mouth against Isaac’s palm. “Excuse me, not all of us took French for four years.”

“Mon loup,” Isaac says softly in response, kissing his nose; he drops another to Scott’s mouth then, and Scott opens up with a sigh when Isaac's tongue smooths over his, digs his fingers into Isaac's thighs to tug ineffectually as his jeans.

He says, "Your birthday's tomorrow."

Isaac slides a hand down Scott's jean pocket to pull him closer, tucks the other under his shirt to flatten at the bare skin of his back. "Mm?"

"Bought you a present -" he stifles a moan into Isaac's collarbone when Isaac’s hand flexes in his back pocket, tries to collect himself when he starts again: "Got it like a month ago. I can give it to you early, if you want."

"But then I won't have a present from you tomorrow," Isaac says, sitting back, and he looks petulant, almost.

Scott smiles crookedly. "Yeah, you will. We move into the dorms, remember."

"Yeah? What're you gonna do?" he asks, and Scott - Scott blames his response on being stuck in a car for weeks, for the full moon being a few days ago, for completely ridiculous teenaged hormones that make him want to drop to his knees right this second in the middle of the damn kitchen -

He leans up on his toes, presses his mouth to Isaac's ear, and murmurs, "I'll lick frosting off you and then fuck you 'til you see stars."

Isaac's chest hitches; he aims a hard, off-center kiss to Scott's mouth, inhaling in sharp through his nose, and when they part, he goes to shift to Scott's neck - barely sets his teeth on it before he jumps, startled by something, and makes a strangled noise as he takes his hands back and ducks his head to the crook of Scott’s neck.

Isaac covers his face with his hands and laughs, high-pitched and trembling. “Um. Hi, Melissa.”

“Isaac.” Scott hasn’t turned around yet - too busy trying not to immediately die of mortification, thanks - but his mom mostly just sounds amused. “Scott.”

Scott knocks his temple against Isaac’s, gentle, and then scratches at the nape of his neck, grins wide as he turns, hand dropped down to cover his crotch. He has a hard on. In the kitchen. In front of his mom. “Hey, mom! We’re back.”

“So I see.”

Melissa sets down the grocery bags in her hands on the kitchen counter - incidentally, to the left of where Isaac’s sitting. Isaac bites his lip and slides off, embarrassed. Wipes his grinning mouth and tugs down at his cardigan so it's mostly covering his own unattended-to problem. And Scott stares again, because his mouth and then shakes himself out of it because he’s not going to think about that while his mom is still standing right there.

Instead, he kisses his mother's cheek, watches Isaac repeat the gesture while she wears the same, amused smile on her face. “There’s more groceries in the backseat -”

“I’ll get ‘em,” Isaac interrupts, clearly looking for a way out of the inevitable conversation, and Scott mouths Traitort; Isaac takes backwards steps to the front door, cheeks flushed and hands still holding his cardigan down; he smiles - or maybe grimaces - and turns to head out.

Melissa opens the fridge to make room on the top shelf for a gallon of milk and Scott rocks back on his heels, peers over the door at her as she crouches down.

"Please tell me you didn't hear that."

Melissa shoves the milk in and holds up her hands and shakes her head. "Never been so happy to have perfectly average human hearing."

Scott quickly side steps the fridge door, grabs the carton of eggs on the counter and hands it over. "Mom?"

She's got her face screwed up as she stares at the contents in the fridge, like she's playing a serious game of life Tetris. "Yeah, sweetheart."

"You love Isaac, right?"

She blinks, stuffed the carton on top of a bag of lettuce distractedly and stands. "Of course I do." She lets the fridge door swing closed, tilts her head just a touch. "...Do you?"

"Yeah," Scott says, and he smiles. "But I realized it's in a, like. Kiss him a lot kind of way, not a matriarchal attachment kind of way."

"I'd noticed," Melissa says, tone still registering somewhere fairly enlightened.

"It's a new development," Scott explains, and she nods.

"Well. I'm not. Incredibly," her brows knit together. "I can't say my mind's um," she gesture to her head, makes an explosion sound as she waggles her fingers. She is Scott's absolute favorite person. "But, you know. It's - it's nice. You're happy?"

"Ecstatic," Scott says, and she cups his chin affectionately just as Isaac comes into view again, thankfully boner-free and with half a dozen bags in his hands. He sets them on the counter, right where he was sitting a few minutes ago, and Melissa starts digging through them methodically.

Then her head whips up and she points in Isaac and Scott's direction. "Bedroom doors stay open when you're home on breaks from school and I'm here."

"Mom," Scott whines, and she snaps her fingers and, somehow, points harder.

"I mean it, Scott. Same rules apply to anyone you're dating - you are dating, right?" She drops her hand, glances between them, unsure. "That - was you saying you were dating?"

"Yeah," Isaac answers, hands in his pockets, smiling down at his boots. Scott really wants to kiss him again.

"Hey, let's go upstairs," he says, and offers a hurried, "to pack! For school. Academia," when Melissa gives him a look. "Mom, seriously, we'll be gone tomorrow, and I can guarantee our dorm room door will be closed. A lot. With a lock."

Melissa stares for a moment, and then cocks her hip and gestures at him with an empty plastic bag. "Do you have condoms still? Do I need to have another safe sex talk with you?"

"The ground is going to eat me up and I will die, mom," Scott says, and gives the shopping bags a tortured look - he wants to help, but he also wants to stop talking about his sex life. He's between a rock and a hard place. The hard place being his woefully untouched dick, or whatever.

"Go," Melissa sighs. "I can do this."

"You sure - ?" Isaac starts, but she waves him away.

"It's fine, it's fine. I'm making your favorite anyway - early birthday dinner, since you'll be driving all day tomorrow."

Isaac's eyes crinkle up. "Really?"

"Mhm," Melissa hums, and Scott tugs on Isaac's arm, c'mon get back to the kissing already, on an actual bed. Isaac lets himself be dragged, dopey smile on his face, and they round the corner and hit the stairs when he says, "Hold on," and doubles back.

Scott follows after him, stops when he reaches the doorway; Isaac's got his arms around Melissa, grocery bags half unpacked behind her on the counter. He says delightedly, face buried in her shoulder, "I love you, too."

He's gone just as quick as he came, bounding up the stairs when Melissa glances at Scott, who's frozen in the doorway. Her eyes are bright, and when she smiles, it's a little wobbly

"I'm gonna miss you," she says, and he sags against the frame gives her a small smile in response.

"I'll miss you too, mom."

She nods, looking down, and clears her throat. "Call you when dinner's ready."

Scott nods back, finally follows Isaac up the stairs two at a time. He's in Scott's room - on his bed - his own laptop already on and the Netflix screen up and running. Scott leaves the door open and crawls up the bed, turns and flops down next to Isaac. He shuts the laptop, sets it down gently on the floor and reaches over Isaac to his bedside table to turn on the iPod dock Isaac'd bought him for his birthday last month.

"You're clairvoyant, this was the perfect present," Scott says as he thumbs the touch wheel until he finds what he wants - an old Blink-182 song, and Isaac laughs and closes a hand around Scott’s bent elbow.

“Seriously, man?” he says when the music starts up, and Scott shrugs.

“What, it’s relevant.”

He pecks Isaac on the mouth then, scoots down the bed and looks up at him. "How quiet do you think you can be?"

"Um," Isaac's eyes flick towards the door as he fidgets into a reclining position. Scott peeks over his shoulder, stretches a leg out so his foot hooks around it; he pulls it so it's almost closed, nudges his foot against it as gently as possible until they hear a soft click. They wait a moment for the telltale sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, but when nothing happens, Scott readjusts himself between Isaac's legs.

Isaac lifts a brow.

"What,” Scott shrugs. “She can't ground me, I'm going to college tomorrow. Also, I'll hear her in time."

"Like we heard her in the kitchen?"

"You have no faith in me," Scott jokes, undoing Isaac's jeans, and Isaac lets out a soft sound as he lifts his hips up so Scott can pull them off. He's shoving the jeans past the edge of the bed when Isaac says quietly, "I have a lot of faith in you. I've always had a lot of faith in you."

Scott pauses, and then leans forward, hands digging into the mattress on either side of Isaac; Scott kisses him again, tells him with a smile, "We didn't always trust each other."

"Yeah, that was a real gripping week and a half," Isaac says wryly.

Scott grins, lets himself settle in Isaac's lap when Isaac sits up properly and holds him by the waist. He shakes his head, sling his arms around Isaac's neck and nips at his jaw and hums along to this world's an ugly place, but you're so beautiful to me -

He murmurs, "Until you see stars, dude."

Isaac's hands curl in at his sides, and he smiles. "Can't wait."

*

They get up at six on the twenty-second, so they can be on the road and make it to their dorm in La Jolla by mid-afternoon; Melissa can’t go with - three people call in sick with the stomach flu she and has to pick up a morning shift so they won’t fall behind. She keeps apologizing in the early morning darkness as they pack up Danny’s car, teary-eyed and promising she’ll drive down as soon as she can.

She rambles until Scott slams the trunk shut, turns and hugs her, buries his nose in her hair. Melissa shudders and clutches at him, and Scott smiles through the tightness in his throat and the sting in his eyes.

“Love you, mom,” he says, and Melissa backs away to hold his face in her hands.

She sniffs, runs a thumb under his eye to wipe at the wetness there and they’ve never lived apart, but Scott’s sure they’ll be okay. Melissa says, “I’m so proud of you, I hope you know that,” and he does. Know.

Always has, really.

He pulls away then, swipes his forearm across his face roughly and Melissa pulls Isaac in right after, stood up on her tiptoes so her arms can hook around his neck. “You’ll be wonderful,” she murmurs to him, fierce and fond, and Isaac’s mouth presses into a thin line when it trembles.

(It’s scary, Scott figures. To leave a place that finally feels like home, to leave an adult who never gave up on you.)

Isaac rests his forehead against her shoulder for a moment, and then he breaks away too. He lifts a hand in goodbye, laughing sheepishly as he rubs his eyes with his other, curled into a fist. He slides into the passenger seat, leans out the window to watch Scott hug his mother one more time.

“Have a good day at work. I’ll call you when we get there.” She’s still crying, and Scott kisses her cheek. “It’ll be fine, mom.”

“I know,” she says, and sniffs again, waves a hand and sighs. “Overwhelming mom feelings, don’t worry.”

She cups his cheek with her hand, runs her thumb back and forth and smiles at him with red-rimmed eyes and Scott makes a mental promise to drive up with Isaac as soon as they can to surprise her. Maybe they’ll bring her something to eat at work.

“I love you, sweetheart.” Melissa drops her hand, gestures towards the car. “Go. Have a safe trip.”

“We will,” Isaac says from the car, smiling now, as Scott gets into the driver’s side. He clicks his seatbelt in and turns the engine, watches Isaac slip his shades on even though the sun won’t rise for another half hour at least.

Scott pulls out of the driveway, brakes quick when he hears Melissa shout, “Wait!”

She dashes inside the house for a few moments, runs back out and over to the passenger side.

“God, I almost forgot,” she carefully hands over a shopping bag through the window. “Happy birthday.”

The J.CREW logo sits dead center on it, and Isaac digs through the tissue paper at the top until he pulls out a shouldered canvas bag. He sets the shopping one down by his feet, grins as he runs his hands over it; Scott has no idea what it is, just that you can stuff things in it - Isaac has the best style out of all of them, even Lydia admits it when she in a nice enough mood - but Isaac looks pleased.

“It’s a laptop bag,” Melissa says, forearm resting on the window as she crouches. “I didn’t - I mean, I saw you looking at it online last month when you were in the living room and I just. You like it, right?”

“Yeah,” he says, and he still hasn’t looked up. “Was gonna wait for a sale or something... um, how did you - ?”

“Don’t worry about how I paid for it, it’s a present,” she says, nudging him in the shoulder. “Just say thank you.”

He’s still smiling faintly, and says Thank you; Melissa ducks in, kisses his temple and then carefully extracts herself and stands straight. Scott calls out a goodbye then, slowly turning onto the street, left hand raised out of the window to give a backwards wave. He laughs when she says sternly, “Hands at ten and two, Scott!”

Scott palms the steering wheel correctly, glances at her in the rearview mirror as they drive further and further away. Melissa’s blowing kisses at them, smiling, and Scott says, “This sucks.”

“We’ll visit,” Isaac says, mindfully tucking the present back into the J.CREW bag. He buckles himself in, and he has the same soft smile on his face when Scott reaches across the console to link their fingers together.

“Hands at ten and two, McCall,” he chides teasingly.

Scott just holds on tighter.

*

They’re not even in the car fifteen minutes when Isaac slumps in his seat with his eyes shut, resting his chin on window so the wind rushing past ruffles his hair; Scott sets his his elbow on his own window, stifles a snort into his curled up hand as he steers with his right.

“Shut up,” Isaac says without opening his eyes.

“You know if any of our friends were here, they'd say something about dogs sticking their heads out the windows.”

Isaac smiles slightly, cracks open an eye. “I know.” He twists his back to stretch, slumps in his seat, head lolled against the headrest to look Scott’s way. “I’m thinking. About how weird it is.”

“What?”

“We’re on our way to college.” He yawns, bunches the leather jacket Scott gave him yesterday - birthday present - tighter around him with a shiver. “I’m in your pack. You have a pack,” he corrects, on the edge of a laugh, and then falls silent. “You can kiss me, whenever you want."

Scott brakes as they head into a short stretch of traffic before they get to the Interstate 5 ramp, scrubs a hand through his hair and half-smiles. He stretches, crooks an arm around Isaac’s neck to haul him closer. Isaac mumbles with a smile teasing at his mouth, “This just is not really what I had in mind when Derek bit me.”

“Don’t say ‘Derek’ when I’m kissing you,” Scott warns him.

Isaac laughs. Scott kisses him again anyway.

And he’s right.

None of this is what Scott had in mind. College only seemed possible once he got his shit together junior year. Hell, staying alive was a pipe dream for awhile, too. And they might all still have scars from back then -

(Ethan couldn’t take Danny saying no to the bite and fled with his brother to God knows where, stuck together like two halves of a fucked up whole - left Danny to figure out where he fit in in this new, scary world before Scott’s pack latched onto him; Lydia screamed until Peter bled out of his ears the night he died, kept on screaming until Allison had run through the pain of it and hugged her. Scott’s darkness inside of him, that darkness in him and Allison and Stiles - if he concentrates, he can feel it sludging through them like a stubborn poison whose perpetual antidote is packfamilyfriends. And Isaac still flinches when he’s boxed in without wanting it, still gets an itch to be outside, to breathe in fresh air -)

But they’re getting better. They’re getting so much better.

Isaac has fingers wrapped around his wrist and Scott jumps when a car honks behind them, long and impatient. Shit. He laughs, kisses Isaac once more, and sits up properly in his seat, foot pressing down on the gas.

He flicks on the turn signal briefly to change lanes. “You’re gonna make me crash.”

Isaac shoves his knockoff Ray-Bans further up the bridge of his nose and grins.

“I’d never let you crash,” he says easily, and there are days like this when Scott wakes up with a past that’s almost foreign.

Days where seventeen seems like forever ago, like one miniscule year in the grand scheme of his life - like someone else's world and someone else's battles and someone else's tragedies. Scott never tried to figure out what Isaac was to him, for him, with him because that meant getting to stop for more than five minutes at a time - and it's funny, actually, now that he thinks about it:

The bite got rid of his asthma, sure, but Scott hadn't really known what taking a healthy, uncomplicated breath in felt like until they'd turned off the beacon for good.

If Luz was right about anything, Scott’s pack is the first of its kind. Humans and hunters and so-called monsters alike, all coexisting together, succeeding together. At this point, Scott’s sure taking one of them out of the picture would be like carving a hole in his chest. Part and parcel with being a true Alpha, he guesses, and he’d been so scared of this. Of this level of responsibility - of giving in to the instinct in him.

A year ago - back before he and Allison learned that being in love with someone didn’t always mean you’d end up okay, when he was still fighting what he was, when he’d have to blink his red eyes to a forced amber just to feel like he was holding onto some semblance of normal in his life -

A year ago, he thought Maybe.

Maybe if he hadn’t been bitten, everything would be easier. Maybe he and Allison would’ve stayed together.

Maybe she’d’ve kept him human.

But truth is -

Truth is, Scott has had an innate sense running in his veins that has so little to do with being human it's almost laughable. It encompasses a large part of his life now, and what he wants, finally - what he really, desperately wants - is someone who understands what it's like to be guided by a lunar cycle, to fight right up to the line of the supernatural and still come out the other side mostly intact, mostly yourself.

Because there’s a difference for Scott, between human and humanity.

Allison made him feel like he could hold onto the parts of him that weren't led by an animal's hardwiring - a life vest when he was drowning in the itch of the monster in him trying to claw its way out.

Isaac makes him feel like he can let himself go - like it's okay to slip into that instinctual undertow of who he is, because he's right there with Scott, tread for tread.

(And sometimes it's not about who can anchor him in place, but who falls right with him with the implicit trust that they'll find a way to the surface together.)

“I’m not worried,” Isaac says carefully, suddenly, and then elaborates: “Of adulthood, I mean. I guess. And having a third of the pack in a whole other state. Pack’s stronger than anything, and you can still feel them, can’t you? Underneath it all.”

“Wolf’s stronger’n anything,” Scott says, side glancing Isaac again, because he knows Isaac gets it, gets feeling them, underneath it all. If Scott were to stop the car right this second, in the middle of the Interstate, and focused long enough, he’d hear Stiles’ heart beating all the way in his dorm room in Ithaca, see Lydia confidently turning the page of a hard copy syllabus, and Danny meeting his new roommate, and Allison typing out an email to the five of them to remind them that being three thousand miles away or three hundred won’t change the fact that this pack is not one that crumbles easily.

“Hope that’s code for you biting my neck again,” Isaac says idly, fingering the unblemished spot on his neck where the second bruise was, ‘til a couple days days ago. “I like it.”

“Like what?”

Isaac looks at him, unimpressed, and Scott’s laughs. “What!”

“Don’t make me say it, man,” Isaac sighs, like Scott’s single-handedly the most difficult person he’s ever dealt with, and Scott reaches out quick to knock him affectionately under the chin with a crooked finger, smiling.

He fits his fingers to Isaac’s leather jacket, and Isaac’s mouth quirks as he stares at them adjusting the lapel. “I like being yours.”

Scott’s hand slips down, runs over his forearm, his wrist. Squints at the upcoming green sign to make sure he’s on the right ramp. “I don’t know, dude, think I’m the one who’s taken here.”

He gets a real smile out of Isaac at that, surprised out of him, full blown and eyes crinkled, and Scott can’t do much but smile back. “Hey, we’re officially on the Interstate. UC San Diego in t-minus however long it takes us to get there. We should do something, once we unpack.”

Isaac lifts his shades so they rest on his hair instead. “I thought we were - “

“We are,” Scott says - Jesus, like fuck he’s going to wait another day. “But. I don’t know. I kinda want to take you to dinner or something.”

“You don’t really have to wine and dine me first,” Isaac says dryly.

“It’s your birthday,” Scott grabs the steering wheel with both hands now, doesn’t miss the way Isaac frowns a little at the loss of contact. “Come on, one thing you want. Right now.”

“Right now? Anything?”

Scott nods, and Isaac hums thoughtfully and stares out the window.

“A chauffeur,” he decides, finally. “Then I could just blow you in the backseat without causing a pile-up.”

Scott’s foot hits the gas a little more, and Isaac sounds amused when he asks, “How long does it take to get to La Jolla from here?”

“Hours,” Scott laments.

“Hm.” Isaac slinks down in his seat, lifts his legs so his shins are pressed to the dashboard. He closes his eyes. “It’s like another road trip. Mini road trip.”

“How’s it looking so far?”

Isaac doesn’t answer. The first snatches of sunrise are peeking over the horizon, and Scott sings along to one and a half songs on the radio when Isaac says, eventually, “Stuck in a car with you for hours. Think I can deal with that.”

“Hey.” Scott flicks him in the temple. “Isaac, don’t fall asleep.”

“My birthday,” Isaac murmurs. “It’s too early.”

He’s out in minutes, arms crossed, body hunched over awkwardly in an attempt to get comfortable. There’s a bed where they’re going, Scott thinks wistfully. A new bed, a new room, a new home -

A new chance of everything working out in the end, if he just tries hard enough.

There’s a whole world of promise in La Jolla.

Scott can’t wait to get there.