He stopped in front of the familiar splintered brown door separating him from his dorm room. Taking a shaky breath, Isaac looked down the hallway for a distraction, some RA on rounds, one of his floormates waking up and heading down to breakfast, somebody, something, to prolong the inevitable. But it was early; classes didn't start for another two hours. Well, actually, it was technically late. What he should have done was drive back the day before, so that he could have had more time to fall back into his routine – but he just couldn't give up spending one last night in his house.
The over packed duffle bag draped on his arm started to weigh him down, the straps digging into his muscled shoulder, so he twisted it around and fumbled through the front pocket for his room key. He told Derek the night before that he wouldn't be coming back until the morning – he understood, of course, telling him to do whatever he needed to do back at home. Isaac also got the impression that he was unsure of what to say. Everybody seemed to be.
Other than the day of the funeral – already ten days ago – he hadn't gotten more than mumbled apologies over voicemail, averted glances from his closest friends brimming with worry, and a few professionally worded sympathy emails from his professors. Scott stayed with him in his house for as long as he could be away from his classes, but he eventually had to go back after missing three days. Isaac knew how much of a hardass Scott's chemistry professor was, and if he missed any more classes he was guaranteed to fall extremely behind.
Isaac's own house scared him for more reasons than he could explain. But Scott understood – to an extent. When his father left, he used to stay at Stiles' house until his mom begged him to come home; he understood the alienation, the inability to feel wanted in the place he was supposed to call his home. But what he didn't understand was what it felt like to be terrified to go home.
Any grade lower than an A, any lacrosse injury he would frequently be sporting, any miniscule, meaningless disagreement he would accidentally voice to his father, and Isaac would get punished. The belt, the freezer, whatever it was, it wrecked his sanity.
That's what Scott didn't understand, wouldn't understand, would never understand. No one would. Because Isaac will never tell anybody about it. He's pretty sure Jackson knew about it, but he never voiced a concern about anyone, much less Isaac. When he moved to London to study at Oxford, he practically fell off the face of the earth; no one has heard from him since – not even Lydia.
His father's car accident may have been a blessing in disguise but he didn't think of it that way. With his father gone, Isaac was left with uncertainty. When he got the call that bitter cold, windy Saturday night that he was holed up in the library, sipping his coffee, trying to finish cramming for his geography exam, he answered hesitantly. He didn't get many calls from his father – whenever he did, it was usually to tell him to come home so that he could make him do chores around the house that he was too lazy to do himself. But Isaac recognized the area code, and out of curiosity, picked up.
Scott was with him. He saw it all. The way Isaac's face fell and how his hands started shaking. The way he spoke – quietly, uncertainly, with a dead tone in his voice, until he hung up.
"He's dead," he whispered, staring at his cell phone. "My dad is dead. Car accident. He was drunk." His short sentences were emotionless. Robotic. Scott reached forward and grabbed both of his hands, trying to make him look up from his phone.
"Isaac..." Scott squeezed his hands a little tighter. "Please look at me."
Finally, Isaac looked up, the emotions beginning to pour into his eyes. "I'm an orphan," he said.
He started sobbing after that, for the death of his father or his sudden realization, Scott wasn't sure, but he held him until Isaac stopped crying. They got up from the library table shortly after and began the long drive back to Beacon Hills. Scott suggested they wait until morning, but didn't want to argue when Isaac seemed so fragile.
They got to Isaac's house absurdly early in the morning, taking the lightly packed bags that they both brought with them. Once he stepped inside the house, he shivered; the absence his father left seemed almost tangible, like he could slice it with a knife. He stopped in front of the kitchen doorway, staring at the table where his father once threw a glass at his face. It was incredible how different he already felt; he noticed it as soon as he stepped past the front door. Suddenly felt like a stranger, unreasonably awkward, like it wasn't his home anymore. Maybe it wasn't. Every one of his personal belongings that held any sort of significance to him were at school, in a city one hundred miles away that didn't even begin to feel like home to him.
They slept in the living room. Too exhausted or too scared to go any farther. The next morning, when Isaac was at the funeral home making arrangements, Scott told the rest of their friends about it, and they all came for the day of the funeral. Isaac didn't ask how they found out.
While he was in the back of the funeral home – there early enough so that he and his friends were the only ones there – Derek stopped in to check on him. He hesitated. Isaac was standing in front of his father's casket; it was closed. He had his head down and looked to almost be hugging it.
There were soft sounds coming from him that Derek assumed was hushed crying, but he didn't want to interrupt. Eventually, Isaac stood up straight and just stared. Stared at the shell of a man who used to be his father.
"Please don't do this to me," he whispered. Because no matter how many poundings, how many whippings, how many hours he had to spend locked in that freezer, his father was the only family he had left.
Things continued slowly after that. Isaac dealt with boxing up his father's possessions, keeping few things and selling the rest. His friends stayed to help with that, but they eventually had to get back to their classes. Stiles and Allison tried to help him – having dealt with losing their moms – but Isaac refused to open up. It wasn't the same situation and they knew that.
Obviously nothing anybody said would change things; no matter how many of Isaac's friends shared their condolences and their advice and their hugs and their looks of pity, nothing would change.
He hoped he would manage.
Isaac's duffle bag fell off his shoulder, dropping on the stiff dorm mattress like a brick. The walls were eerily quiet; usually he's constantly bothered by the guys next door playing video games at strange hours of the day. But the morning was still.
He moved over to his desk and sat down. Painful realization hit him, and Isaac stared at the walls of the only home he had left. It didn't have to be that way; he could have fought to keep the house. To find a steady enough job to pull him through mortgages and simultaneously pay for the entirety of his tuition. Maybe even drop out. But he knew his friends wouldn't let him do that.
Isaac knew that if – and that if was a big one, a possibility that he would slip back into his old life, that he would just become a hopeless victim, trapped in a world he couldn't escape – if his dad had somehow survived the crash, Isaac would have given up before long. But that if never came, and he was left to face the future with what seemed to be no plan or direction.
Maybe this is growing up, he thought, wondering if anybody would ever even begin to understand him anymore.
Looking over at Derek's empty bed, Isaac sighed, assuming he spent the night at Stiles' to give him some space on his first morning back. Scott didn't seem to mind whenever that happened. He was lucky to have Derek as a roommate. Once he got past the intimidating exterior, he found that Derek really was the most considerate person.
Feeling himself being pulled back into the slump of drowsiness, Isaac decided to brew a pot of coffee when he noticed a note in his coffee filters. He recognized Scott's handwriting immediately –he was more than aware of Isaac's coffee addiction.
Please come over when you get in. I'll be awake. –Scott
Isaac felt a little guilty about that. Scott was truthfully the most supportive boyfriend; he seemed to know exactly what to do, and that was mostly to just be there – silently, offering Isaac support for whatever he needed.
So he picked up his cell phone and texted Scott.
Be over in five. Meet you in the study lounge.
Scott texted him back almost instantaneously, letting him know that he'll be there. When the coffee finished brewing, he split it between two mugs, grabbed his room key, and started the walk down to the other wing of his dorm.
They lived on the same floor, funnily enough. Or maybe it wasn't just a coincidence, since Derek was an RA and couldn't manage to shut Stiles up until he agreed to put him and Scott on the same floor as Derek and Isaac. He made a pretty persuasive argument.
Isaac smiled when he got closer to the study lounge and was met with the sight of Scott sitting on the floor – black hair a mess, thick rimmed glasses slightly falling down his face, blanket wrapped around him. He quickly came to the conclusion that the text message definitely woke him up, but Isaac was so relieved to see him again that he decided not to argue the point.
A wide smile spread across Scott's tired face and he sighed in relief when he saw Isaac holding the two mugs of coffee. Isaac sat on the floor next to him and handed over a mug. They didn't say anything for a few minutes. Just sat with each other. Drinking comfortably through the silence. Scott was tracing shapes on Isaac's knee and he shivered with the touch, forgetting how much he really missed it.
"I missed you," Scott said.
It was an understatement. And Isaac knew that, because he felt it too. They were only together seven months but they both felt the desperation in their relationship, the need, the hunger, the short rope tethering them to each other. The past week was the longest they'd ever been away from each other.
Rather than waiting for Scott to bring it up, Isaac decided to clear the air right away.
"I'm really sorry I haven't called since you left the house."
The house. Because that's all it was now.
"I just needed time to myself after everybody left, and I hope you can understand that," Isaac said in a hushed tone, reminding himself that he has to play his part believably.
"And I know you want me to talk about it," he continued. "But I can't. And I won't. And I hope you can understand that too."
Scott always knew there was something Isaac never told him about his relationship with his father. But he trusted that Isaac would tell him if it was something extremely serious. He hoped.
Scott looked down at his coffee mug. "But Isaac –"
"Stop," Isaac pleaded. "Please. I really just can't do this right now," he said as he started to get up. Scott grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the floor.
"Okay, fine," Scott said, with a slight hint of anger in his voice. "Fine. I'll shut up."
And then, moving his head so that he was in Isaac's direct line of sight, he said, "But I'm here, I'm not going anywhere."
"I know. Believe me, I know. You have no idea what you staying there meant to me. All of you," he added, remembering the way that Lydia and Allison helped put the dinner together after the funeral. And when Stiles and Derek made sure Isaac didn't drink himself to death when he wound up hitting his dad's stash of vodka.
He believed Scott. But inside he doubted his ability to fix this. For anybody to fix this. He sure couldn't. He wasn't even sure if it could be fixed. It wasn't just that Isaac didn't have any family anymore; he didn't have a home, no place to call his own, no more memories. When he lost his house, he lost the remaining memories he had of his mom, before she left. He remembers the stories she would tell him to put him to bed, the heaps of marshmallows she would put in his hot chocolate whenever they had snow, the way she always managed to smell of flowers, her smile, her infectious laugh, everything that made that house bearable and worth living there. The hope she carried.
He was homeless. In more ways than one. His heart wasn't there at university, it wasn't at the house, it was nowhere. No home. No hope.
They talked until they both had to go get ready for classes. They talked about what Isaac missed, and what exams Scott had, and how Lydia and Allison had visited from their university, a convenient five miles away.
Isaac agreed to meet him and Stiles for lunch. He decided pretending to be better was easier, so he made it his mission to convince everybody that he was okay; the truth would stay buried. Secrets were easier to keep than promises.
But secrecy is a deadly disease.
So they walked back to their rooms. Isaac looked around, still no Derek. He hated this. The fact that every one of his friends was treating him like glass. Like at any moment, he would just shatter. Maybe he would. He didn't know. But he just wished things could be normal again. Whatever normal was.
So he went to classes. And he ate with his friends. His homework kept piling up, he pretended to not notice. It just sat there, untouched, getting buried, piling on top of each other, on his desk for days at a time until Derek carefully suggested that Isaac finish it or he wouldn't pass the semester.
Weeks passed and nothing changed. The semester was almost over, it would be Christmas soon, but Isaac saw no light at the end of the tunnel. He just stopped caring. He shut down. Broke down. Lost it.
So, one day, when he decided he didn't want to be a burden on Scott, on his friends, on everybody, he hopped a train to Beacon Hills. He had two more classes left in the day.
He left a note for Derek, insisting that he was okay, that he needed to get away, just for a bit. He didn't know how much of it was a lie, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he and Scott came after him. Isaac didn't say where he was going, but Scott would probably easily be able to guess. So would Derek. They knew that bar pretty well.
But three hours later, when Isaac was three shots and seven beers deep, he wasn't met with his boyfriend, or Derek, or even Stiles. He blearily looked up from his stool and stared at the beautifully devastated face of Lydia Martin.
She stared at him as she sat down, sighing. Grabbing his hand that was tightly wrapped around the beer bottle, she took it into both of her hands. Isaac didn't look up, but she noticed the tear tracks on his face.
"Oh, honey…" she said.
Without moving, he said, "Just sit here with me."
And so she did. They sat for another hour before Lydia decided it was time to go back to their campuses. She drove silently, scared of the current state of her friend. She wasn't there as much as Scott was, and she now regretted it. She didn't know what to do to bring him back, to prevent him from truly going off the deep end. And that's what scared her the most.
When they arrived at Isaac's campus, she walked with him until they reached the entrance to his dorm building. She grabbed his hand and forced him to look at her, looking straight into his broken blue eyes.
"You eat and you go to class. Promise me," she said.
He tried to pull out of her grasp, but she held fast. He sighed and said, "I promise." He didn't convince either of them.
They said goodbye and went their separate ways. Scott was waiting in Isaac's room. Derek was nowhere in sight. Scott wasn't angry, or confused, or sad. He was tired, for so many reasons. He blinked through the emotions washing over his face and stared at the boy he loved more than anything; Scott couldn't take it anymore.
"Please," he pleaded. "Please, talk to me. Or Derek, or Lydia, I don't care. Please, Isaac. You're scaring me."
He scared his friends. He blinked. He breathed. He didn't do anything else.
Not saying anything, he moved over and pulled Scott with him to his bed. They sat for a while, Isaac laying his head down in Scott's lap. It was enough, for a while. But five painfully silent minutes later, Scott sat Isaac up and grabbed his hands.
"Let's talk. I'm not letting you leave," he said.
Isaac forcefully yanked his hands free of Scott's grasp. He suddenly shot out of bed and started pacing. He had to do it at some point, he knew that, but he wanted to pretend for just a bit longer.
He scrubbed a shaking hand over his face and said with white-hot determination, "Fine. You wanna know? You wanna know why I'm so fucked up?" He was talking loudly now. "He beat me. Nearly every day of my life. Some days were worse. That time I broke my arm and I told you that I fell off my dirtbike? Yeah, he pushed me down the stairs."
Scott sat there on Isaac's bed, stunned. Absolutely and completely stunned. His face must have given him away because that just fueled Isaac's anger.
"See? That's why I didn't tell you." He sat down at his desk then, fumbling with his coffee filters. Starting to calm down, he looked back over at Scott.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to deal with me. I couldn't tell you. And when I wanted to, it was too late."
Deciding to speak up for the first time, Scott walked over and kneeled down next to Isaac's desk.
"Bullshit," he said. "It's never too late. You're telling me now, and that's what's important. And as for your dad, for what I can tell, you're better off without him. You need to accept that."
Isaac shook his head. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't. I can't shake the feeling that I could have changed things. That I wouldn't be like this now if I had done something about it. He's dead. I missed my chance. I lost."
"Yeah he's dead," Scott said, almost bitterly. "So what? What would you do? If you had the chance to turn him in, or tell somebody, or even kill him – god knows he deserved it – would you take it?"
Would he? He didn't know. And he might never know, because like he said, he missed his chance. It was over. Nothing could be changed, and Scott was right, he had to accept that. They sat back on the bed again, Scott playing with Isaac's hair while Isaac played with the sheets, trying to put words to what he was thinking.
"Okay. The truth is there's not one day that has gone by where I have not fallen in love with you. With everything about you. And I'm scared. My dad was a piece of shit and look what he did to me. I just don't want to think about what losing someone I actually care about would do to me."
Scott grabbed his chin, making Isaac look at him. "Hey," he said. "I'm stupidly in love with you. You know that?"
Isaac felt himself smiling slightly at that. He simply nodded. That's what scared him. Their love was too strong. It was destined to be broken.
"So if you think I'm going anywhere, you better think twice. And nothing's gonna happen to me, Isaac. I promise," Scott said.
Of course he couldn't promise anything. There was nothing to say that he wouldn't die tomorrow, but for that time, it made Isaac feel a bit better.
Sometimes a home isn't a place – it's a person. And maybe – just maybe – that would be enough.