disclaimer: teen wolf does not belong to me, sadly

dedication: to summer days and inspiration and the cute boy whose heart is never quite on his sleeve

note: idk what this is, but i tried, and it's the greatest thing that's happened to me since i made the decision to write again


Isaac Lahey always knew exactly what he wanted. That never meant that he would have it – no, not by a long shot. He had never always had what he wanted but he always knew. There was a difference there. He remembered when he was three and he had asked Camden rather politely if he could borrow his Superman action figure - Superman had been his favorite superhero, still was, actually - but Camden, being the sincere, generous, loving older brother he was, obviously never let him borrow it, and he had made Isaac promise never to touch it. That, of course, changed as they grew older and more mature, but Isaac still took Camden at his word and never touched that Superman figurine – not until they had to clean out his room after receiving the bad news.

That was another thing about Isaac – he was honest. Brutally so, mostly to himself these days, but he found that he really couldn't be brutally honest out loud anymore, not after the first time his father had told him off, not after the third time he had locked him in a closet, not after – all of it. Isaac figured he was a glutton for punishment, somehow, as well as a self-proclaimed masochist. Sometimes, when he was particularly angry and his father had resorted to physical blows, he would allow himself a small smile and see how far the truth would get. Would it ever make it past his throat, where it sat heavy and waiting to be released? Once, on a pretty horrible night, he'd found it on the tip of his tongue, ready to be launched out of his body like ammunition from a gun.

But Isaac wasn't a violent boy, never had been. Self-preservation was more than an instinct for him now, so he kept the truth buried inside of him, moved on, collected more truths, hid them. There was a thrill in knowing, but this wasn't some pursuit of knowledge, not for him. It was about control, and he needed to be in control. He had let far too many things slip past his walls and break him down.

There was a sort of vengeance in Isaac Lahey's heart, and he figured that was part of the reason why he had agreed to Derek Hale's proposition to become a werewolf. After he mastered the shift, the full moons, it would become another thing he could control, another thing that made him feel powerful.


His first mission as part of Derek Hale's new pack (along with Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd) was to find, isolate, and possibly kill Lydia Martin. Derek was convinced that Lydia – little strawberry blonde Lydia who he used to have a crush on – was this dangerous, scaly creature going around murdering people, one of whom happened to be his father. He wasn't complaining, really, but the man had been his father.

Isaac scowled, and he could feel the bizarre twist of his mouth as he frowned. Family ties could be so troublesome, but that wasn't even the case here. He just – he felt so angry lately, ever since he had been bitten. His control was slipping, he knew – but who knew this pesky werewolf thing could heighten his anger? What was it really meant to do? He supposed he should have done more research before agreeing, because this anger was really getting under his skin. He was constantly on the edge of bursting, as Erica had noted more than once.

It had gotten to the point where he was itching to kill someone, to feel his claws sink into soft flesh and tear. This felt intoxicating, this felt powerful, this felt – completely foreign to him. He didn't really want to kill Lydia, he knew. It was the anger simmering in his whole body. It was there, causing his blood to boil, his heart to throb in his ears. Fuck, he just wanted to do something! Everyone was being passive, being quiet, taking their time. He acknowledged that it was the smarter move, of course, but it didn't mean he liked it.

And there was also the other problem of Lydia's posse. How the hell were they expected to get her alone when she was always flanked by her stupid jock boyfriend or Thing 1 and Thing 2?

Jackson seemed quite skittish lately, what with everything that was happening, so it was unlikely that he would leave his girlfriend alone for an extended amount of time soon. He was smart, too, and he always made sure that if he wasn't with her, then Thing 1 and Thing 2 were.

Stilinski and McCall were slowly becoming more and more of a problem. Isaac had known them for quite some time, and they'd always been losers - not that he was one to talk - but in the past they had always been predictable – and stupid. But judging from what Derek had told them, they'd smartened up considerably, and they never left Lydia alone. Ever.

Ugh. Some people were just so fucking annoying.

Erica had promised to take on McCall, though, and Isaac figured that McCall wasn't as strong as everyone thought if he was bending to the will of a pretty blonde who happened to have her hand on his thigh.

Isaac heard a noisy exhale behind him, and curiously he turned to see a gorgeous brunette with a strong jaw, glaring at Erica and her hand on McCall's thigh, while Erica was clearly smirking at the girl, baiting her, taunting her, daring her to make a move.

Quickly rifling through the long list of people he knew, Isaac drew a blank. Who was this girl and why did he feel as if he had seen her face before?

He turned back around and glanced at Lydia, who had been paying attention to the lecture but was now shooting the brunette a warning look, as if to shut her up in case anyone else was paying attention.

The angry huff behind him told him that she clearly didn't like being told what to do, and for the first time in a while, he felt his lips twist into an odd little smile, forgetting that he needed to know everything about this girl right away (purely for informational reasons, of course), forgetting that she could be dangerous, if she caught on to the games they were playing in class.

The girl didn't hear him.


He had caught her staring at him a few times whenever they were in the same room. He had found out from Erica and Boyd that her name was Allison Argent, and she was the resident new girl as well as Lydia's best friend. Allison Argent, he found out, was not a very discreet observer, noting the way she knocked a couple of books off the bookshelf and swore loudly as she was trying to get a better look at him.

"I can see you," he said bemusedly, fighting to keep another smile off his face as she shoved the books back into the bookshelf and strode over to him, a muscle ticking in her jaw.

"I know who you are," she said, looking fiercely at him down her nose. "I know you're trying to kill Lydia. She's not the monster. Back off."

With that, she turned on the heel of her boots and marched away, leaving Isaac to stare curiously after her.


"Hey, Derek?"

A grunt. "Yes, Isaac?"

"Are you sure that Lydia's the monster?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"… But are you absolutely – "

"Isaac."

"Okay."


So it turns out that Derek was wrong about the monster, the dickhead. Since Allison had known that he was trying to kill Lydia, she never looked at him twice without that spiteful spark in her eyes. It was really killing his vibe. In all honesty, he didn't really even want to kill Lydia anymore, not since the day he first laid eyes on Allison Argent. The urge to kill Lydia was merely an extension of the uncontrollable anger he had felt before, but now that he didn't feel it – his words, his actions, everything in relation to Derek's mission was half-hearted. And it was just now occurring to him that he had let this girl under his skin in a short amount of time, and he didn't even know her. Not really.

But he knew that her eyes sparkled when she talked to her friends. Not with spite, but with love. There were a lot of things about her that were soft when she wasn't around Isaac, and he didn't know if he liked that or not.

Tonight, however, had been some sort of testament as to just how spiteful she felt towards him, and that hurt him more than he could care to think.

McCall and his pack of – he refrained from adding losers because Allison would be lumped in with them, and she wasn't like them in his eyes, not at all, not even after this – friends ended up at a warehouse Derek had been scoping out for a while. It was dark and it smelled musty, and teenagers sneaking off in the middle of the night is so not suspicious, but whatever.

The fighting had started fairly quickly. The air had smelled strongly of gunpowder and sweat and musk, but Isaac's werewolf nose was focused on sniffing out who he should sink his claws into next.

That is, when Allison came up behind him with her soft hands gripping sharp knives that she plunged into his back. They cut through him like butter, and the searing pain was enough to make him roar, and through the haze of it all he could imagine how proud she felt that she had landed a hit on him. The pride would twist her red lips into a beautiful smile, but as his eyes shot up to her as he fell, he could see that the smile on her face was anything but hers, and anything but beautiful.


It had taken a lot of time after that to forgive her in his heart, even after he discovered that she was manipulated by her batty old grandfather. In his head, it was clinical, cut and dry – he forgave her in his head because he understood, he knew she loved the feeling of power, the feeling of having control.

In his heart, it wasn't nearly as simple.

The resentment he harbored in his heart was irrational, he knew. He'd barely spoken to her once or twice, and just because he was puzzling through these sudden, unfamiliar feelings about her, didn't mean she was experiencing the same thing. He just wanted –

For the first time in his life, Isaac Lahey didn't know what he wanted.


"I'm… sorry."

A look of surprise. "For what?"

"For stabbing you. For being unnecessarily rude. For… a lot of things, I guess."

"Oh. Well, we've all got things we're sorry for."

A shy smile. "I suppose that's true, but do you mind if we start all over? I'm keen on first impressions, but in this case I'm willing to compromise. You're not all bad."

"Gee, thanks."

Isaac swore his heart swelled up like a balloon at the sound of her laugh. "I didn't mean it like that! I just –"

"It's okay. I understand."

"I'm Allison. It's nice to meet you."

"Isaac. The pleasure's all mine."


Isaac Lahey always knew what he wanted. Granted, those things didn't always make sense, no, especially not when it came to beautiful, infuriating werewolf huntresses who just couldn't seem to stay away. It did wonders for his control, really, this burgeoning desire to just be with her, to make her laugh, to brush her curls out of her face. It had panicked him at first, back when it was only an infatuation, because his carefully-crafted control was slipping through his fingers once again, and then where would he be? But in a surprising show of will, he had slowly been trying to come to terms with the fact that what had begun as a slight infatuation had grown to be much more than that.

Isaac wasn't stupid. He saw the way McCall mooned over her, the way his hands lingered awkwardly on her waist when he kissed her, the way he'd seek her out in the stands while he was playing lacrosse even when he knew that he would get distracted. Isaac knew all of these things.

But most especially, Isaac Lahey always knew what he wanted. And this time, he wasn't stopping until he came out on top – with the girl, of course.


footnote: please don't favorite without reviewing, i'd really like to know what you think :-)