A/n: sorry this took so long, I'm writing them in my phone while on the bus to work and the ideas come to me kinda out of order. Hope you like it. I'm getting a lot of follows and not a lot of reviews which is confusing and kinda sad, i miss the reviews, the long ones, and the short ones and the ones that are like oh my god this sentence here! So good. I want to know that you get the feels like I do. So I actually have all the chapters finishes except one. I was thinking I'd upload all the other chapters on mondays.

Mystery Date

Its the first time they've been left alone without Derek and there not sure if its a good thing or not.

He's there Alpha, the big bossman, their centre and without him they all secretly wonder if they're still PACK.

"Should we do something?" Boyd asks his low voice unsure.

None of them have ever really been very social for one reason or another and now even with Erica and Isaac's new wolfy confidence they are a pretty awkward group.

Sitting rather quietly in the abandoned subway car two of the three wondering if they should just leave, one stuck there for what feels like eternity.

"Like what?" Isaac asked quietly although both notice that the quake that used to be so strong in his voice has almost entirely gone.

Erica shrugs looking past the pale brunette to the pile of textbooks behind him. He's already done all the work that she brought for him, at least when he's exonerated and goes back to school he won't be behind.

"Boardgame?" She supplies but almost immediately wants to take it back, what a terribly nerdy thing to suggest, she is sure she's lost all of her cool new werewolf cred when Boyd nods.

"I could play a boardgame."

Her heart lightens and a small smile pushes the wolfy overconfidence out of her face.

"Well there are none here..." Isaac informs them leaning forward in a broken bench seat crossing his arms over the back of the seat in front.

"I have a bunch at my house..." Erica tells them, "me and Boyd-"

"Boyd and I." Isaac corrects quietly.

"Me and Boyd," she starts again putting more emphasis on the incorrect grammar, "could go pick some up, snacks and things too."

Boyd is nodding totally fine with this idea, he gets up from his seat by the door, "is there anything you need while were out?" He asks as Erica flounces past him.

Isaac looks shifty for a moment, "a... flashlight..." He shrugs as if its not that big a deal, but even now with most of the lights on, and some sun coming through the high grimy window its still pretty dark in here.

"Sure man." He nods and exits following Erica up the ladder, wondering briefly how there going to get all that stuff down safely and easily...a pulley system might be a good idea, maybe they should stop by the hardware store on the way back.

.

Boyd is surprised at how normal Erica's house is, no secret torture basement here, just home cooking smells, wood panel and slightly outdated shag carpeting.

"Your back early!" A female voice, warm and motherly, yells from the open study door.

"Boyd and I came to grab some boardgames!" Erica yells back stepping out of her shoes.

He can't help but smile, Isaac would be so proud so of course she turns to look at him with narrow eyes that clearly tell him not to say a thing.

"Whose Boyd?" A male voice chimes in from the kitchen at the end of the wood panelled hall.

"A friend from school!" She yelled back and then turned to Boyd and whispered, "I've already told them I was hanging out with you tonight...I'm not hiding you or anything..."

"Just Isaac." He smirks.

"Well yeah. Can you see that going well?"

They are laughing quietly together and it warms something in his core that had previously been untouched. This must be what its like to have friends.

They leave shortly after but not before Boyd has met both her parents and they have been laden with piping hot leftovers.

.

He's already read The Catcher in the Rye twice and done all the questions Erica had brought him. He's lying on the ground outside the car with the novel over his face, page marked in chapter three yet again when he smells them come back.

They smell good, Boyd like fresh ice, Erica little white flowers and honey and they smell of PACK, a calming smell he loves.

He sits up quickly because they also smell like food. Has he gotten so hungry for real food that he's gone delirious and wants to eat them?! No! Isaac tries to do that breathing exercise Derek taught him to keep the wolf hunger down, but god they smell so good, like homemade meat loaf and mashed potatoes with gravy.

"Some help?!" Boyd yells from the top of the ladder.

Biting his lip he goes to the bottom of the ladder to catch whatever it is he as to.

Its a rope?

Peering up into the dim he can see that Boyd has stretched himself out dangerously far securing a pulley?

Minutes later Boyd and Isaac are happily sending things down in a large metal pale.

A random selection of boardgames that rattle with loose pieces, a freshly laundered blanket, a flashlight, a six pack of cola, a couple bags of chips and a bunch of steaming glass containers and cutlery.

Isaac let out a breath that everyone heard but didn't care. The heavenly smell was coming from the containers he wasn't delirious, he didn't want to eat his pack.

"What's this?" He asked lifting the piping hot container out of the bucket.

"My dad's homemade meatloaf, mashed potatoes and honey carrots." Erica tells him and her voice is like heavenly choirs and harp music because christ that's the best thing he thinks he's heard in his entire life.

"I love you." He whispered and no one is sure if he's talking to Erica or the tupperwear he's cradling but she's blushing anyway and Boyd is finding his new pulley system incredibly interesting.

.

"So what does Derek feed you?" Boyd asks pulling out the pieces of Mystery date.

"Rabbit mostly... And some thai take away." Isaac tells him through a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

"We can play a different game-" Erica is scrambling to put the pieces of her mom's old Mystery Date game back into the box but every piece she puts in Boyd pulls back out, "I just grabbed the ones on the top..."

"You mean you don't want to go to the big formal with..." Isaac looks at the card squinting to read the writing under the boy in the tux, "Dexter? Ugh that's a terrible name." He puts the card back into the pile it belongs in.

"I don't know, I think I'd rather go on the picnic date." Boyd responds shuffling the deck.

.

They end up playing five rounds of Mystery Date before Erica rage quits, Isaac wins twice and Boyd three times, and the board is now upside down and pieces and cards are everywhere.

She hates this game.

"I hate this game." She grumbles trying to drown her sorrows in cola.

"No you hate losing," Isaac tells her, "there's a difference." His voice is serious but he's smiling. There is no quake in his voice now, and its not just masked by the wolfy bravado this time. It feels good being together, calming, comforting, oddly powerful and lazy all at once. It's the belonging they all craved, secretly or not, and they are family now.

"Do you think Derek would play boardgames with us?" Erica asks pulling out the scrabble board. Pushing the debris of her mothers ancient game out of the way.

"Maybe after the hunters are gone..." Isaac ponders aloud and a chill goes through them all.

The hunters.

None of them know much about them, other than what Derek told them before they agreed to turn. They are a family, a large family, that is out to kill them and they are at war.

War.

Unconsciously they all huddle in closer to each other, creating a semi circle around the board, knees and elbows bumping into each other, but the comfort of the feeling of PACK is a thousand times more important than being able to hide there tiles from each other.

.

One ridiculously long scrabble game later filled with swear words and the occasional scientific term (Boyd swears that Achlorhydria is a real word), Erica's phone alarm went off.

"I have to go home..." Erica said reluctantly pushing away from the pack and feeling an instant hollow.

Isaac was looking down at the board moving the letters around, and she could smell the loneliness on him. It was a scent that sunk her stomach and froze her skin.

"Hey, I can stay." Boyd pushed Isaac kindly and laughed softly when he ended up upending both Isaac and the board.

Laughing Isaac clung onto the now slightly torn scrabble board and held it up for Boyd to see, "this is why we can't have nice things."

"I thought that was why we can't have nice things." Boyd pointed at Erica's feet, she had unknowingly stepped on the Mystery date game.

Isaac and Boyd burst out into roaring laughter as a bright red blush flooded Erica's face.

.

Its not until their tenth round of broken mystery date that Boyd brings up the topic of Erica.

"So what's with you and Erica?"

"What?" Isaac looks up from his cards so quickly he almost loses them all. He can feel a heat in his face that is just screaming things he'd rather not talk about.

"You." Boyd picks up the little blue marker and shakes it for emphasis, "and Erica." He fishes the pink marker out of the box and makes it do a little dance in the air.

"There's nothing going on." Isaac doesn't even look Boyd in the eyes for that one.

"Ah huh... And Scott's an existentialist."

"He could be."

"Dude, I like Scott but he couldn't even spell existentialism." Boyd makes the two markers kiss in a surprising display of immaturity. Honestly Isaac thinks he likes immature Boyd best. The one that hoards cards and wins multiple games of Mystery date, the one that smiles.

"I don't know what's up with me and Erica."

"Erica and I." Boyd corrects and the smirk breaking out across his face is ridiculous and taunting and he kind of wants him to do it all the time even if it means correcting his grammar (which honestly isn't that great to begin with but it doesn't take much to be better than Erica.)

"Erica and I." He grumbles and the heat in his face has lessened thankfully.

"She likes you." Boyd tells him simply, putting the markers back where they belong.

"I don't know." All the bravado and confidence that Isaac usually hides behind just falls off him and Boyd is left looking across the board at a boy who honestly has no idea.

Possibly about anything.

"I think she likes Stiles." And there's something all knowing about the way he says it that it seems somehow more believable that someone would like Stiles.

"Stiles? As in the attention deficit sidekick?"

Isaac shrugged, "Honestly I don't understand how they're still alive."

Boyd puts his hand of cards down between them and proceeds to casually win the game.

"Erica likes you. I'd put money on it." Boyd looks up at Isaac looks right into the unsure blue and hopes he's driving the point home because he doesn't bet on losers.