"Ah," Peter said when Isaac walked back into the large apartment after sulking for a while and changing from his gown into some proper clothes at Peter's, "Derek, I think we have another attendee of the first annual 'I Hate Allison Argent' meeting. Should I take notes?"
His comment was met with grins from Jackson and a now-clothed Isaac but a heavy scowl from Derek.
"Isaac that was a fucking stupid thing you did," Derek said. The ubiquitous anger in his voice hadn't shifted. "Are you mentally deficient?"
"If I was mentally deficient, I would have missed," Isaac didn't bother trying to hide his grin and neither did Jackson. "Check that out: bulls-eye."
Jackson laughed out loud and came over to greet Isaac.
"Good shot, man," he clapped Isaac on the shoulder in congratulations, "Loved the curve you put in, you'll have to teach me how to do that."
"I would if you were sticking around long enough," Isaac laughed but his face faded back into neutrality. He was sad to see Jackson go; after an entire school life of mutual dislike, the lacrosse co-captain had grown on him. And now he was getting ready to leave for London.
"Hey, I'm not going for another week yet," Jackson grinned, "That leaves us plenty of time to beat a hoe."
The grin returned to Isaac's face as a mental image of himself, Peter and Jackson dressed up as Charlie's Angels fighting with Allison popped into his head.
"It'll be sad to see you go, though," Isaac said sincerely, "It'll be tough convincing Peter to help me get her back and something tells me Derek isn't keen on the idea."
"Too right I'm not keen on the idea," Derek growled, effectively ending Jackson and Isaac's playful conversation. "Chris Argent has agreed to leave us alone. With Gerard, her mom and her aunt gone in the space of a couple of months, it would be kind to not to aggravate his daughter."
"It would have been kind not to try to kill us all," Isaac said, not bothering to drop his voice; Derek would have heard him anyway.
"Agreed," Derek said, surprisingly, "But that doesn't mean that we should physically abuse someone who wants to help us; especially not the one person that's keeping the deal with Chris on the table. You should know enough about physical abuse to know that it's not great being on the receiving end."
Everyone, including Derek, in the room knew that was a low blow. Totally unwarranted but it did get the point across. However, it also freed Isaac of all desire to talk to Derek.
"Okay," he mumbled, looking away from his alpha, partly ashamed by his actions and partly wounded by Derek's comment. He fell back onto the wooden chair that sat alongside the doorway and dropped his head to look at the floor.
Derek could see that he'd hurt Isaac but he wasn't the apology type so he stalked past him and dragged his hand lightly over Isaac's shoulder. It was to show affection, to tell him that he didn't mean any hurt with his words, Isaac knew, but the hurt was caused all the same.
Even Peter the amoral warrior seemed to be feeling second-hand pain for Isaac because his ever present smirk had totally vanished. If Isaac had been looking, he would have reckoned that the last time that happened was when Derek slit his throat.
"Are you alright?" Jackson asked.
"Not really," Isaac answered quietly with a half-laugh as the front door of the apartment slammed shut, signalling Derek's departure. "I thought that was a little unnecessary."
"Yes," Peter said, matching Isaac's quiet tone. He sounded genuinely upset which was definitely new. "I'm going to catch him up and give him hell."
A second slam of the door seconds later showed that he was serious. Isaac and Jackson were left in the apartment alone. Jackson pulled a wooden chair and sat down to face him.
"It's alright, man," he said softly, "That's all behind you. You don't have to worry about it anymore."
No, Isaac thought, I don't have to worry about my dad anymore. But Derek, I do need to worry about.
He didn't say it though. As much as he felt that he should have, there was something about Jackson being warm, kind and attentive that Isaac didn't want to ruin. He just nodded and smiled.
"I don't think I've ever said this to you, but I am truly sorry," Jackson said. His voice was still soft and to Isaac's ears, it was calming. He'd never heard Jackson talk like this though and he looked up, confused, silently urging the other boy to continue.
"I'm sorry," he said again, "Everything that you went through. I knew all about it for years, I even saw it happen a few times and I never did anything. I don't know if one of the things that come with being a werewolf is a heightened sense of empathy but I was a total dick about that. I should have said something to someone. At the very least, I could have been nice to you."
"Yeah, you could have," Isaac conceded, "But there's nothing you can do about it. You're nice to me now; that's what matters."
A comfortable silence settled between them then and neither of them broke it for a few minutes. In the end, it was Jackson who spoke.
"Hey," he said, "I bet I could kick your ass on Mario Kart."
"Probably," Isaac replied, "Considering I've never played."
Jackson threw himself off his chair in a melodramatic display of his very real shock. He brought himself to his feet in dramatic fashion, gasping and wiping his eyes as if he was fighting tears. It was a real sight.
"You've never player Mario Kart?" Jackson asked on the back of a gasp. "Like, ever?"
Isaac's brother Camden had never let him play video games during his childhood. The Nintendo 64 and the Playstation 2 that sat in his older brother's room were strictly off limits to him.
By the time the versions that were compatible with the Wii that Isaac bought himself with the money from his first job, his father had already taken to claiming all of Isaac's wages so he couldn't afford any new games.
Even when he'd moved in permanently with Derek, he was paying too much into upkeep of the apartment (voluntarily, but still) to be able to afford more than a couple of new games and Mario Kart hadn't been at the top of his list of priorities.
So no, Isaac had never played Mario Kart. But judging by the look that Jackson had on his face, he could tell that that was about to change.
Grabbing his arm and pulling with the force and speed that any normal human wouldn't believe, Jackson caused Isaac to stumble a grand total of four times on the way to the small spare bedroom that Jackson claimed for his own when he stayed at the apartment overnight.
There was enough room for a single bed in the room but a double would have left no room to walk, that's how small it was. A flat screen television that was far too big for its surroundings was mounted on the wall with a Nintendo Wii and an Xbox 360 resting on two separate stands directly below it. Isaac knew that Derek bought them along with the thirty DVDs on the third and final stand for if Scott, Jackson, Peter or any others were to stay the night to make it more comfortable for them. An uncharacteristically kind thing for Derek to do but Isaac had got to choose the DVDs himself so they were all ones he liked.
There were a few personal touches around the room that highlighted Jackson's territorial claim: a Hugo Boss watched sat atop the windowsill next to a necklace that Isaac knew Lydia had handmade; a small poster of a couple of black guys wearing chains with dollar signs who Isaac could only assume were rappers was taped to the wall behind the bed; a recent model of some cell phone sat atop a crease of the black bed sheets.
Isaac looked at the phone as it lit up and was greeted by a picture of a smiling Jackson and Lydia with a little kid he didn't know. He squinted to see the picture better and the letters SDCC became clear to him.
"Dude," Isaac almost shouted in excitement. "You went to Comic Con?"
Jackson was fiddling with the television leads when Isaac spoke and he made one last tug and pressed the on button before turning around. The main menu screen of Mario Kart Wii formed on the screen behind him.
"Yeah," he said smiling, "me and Lydia took my cousin last year. He is a total geek for that stuff but he enjoyed it and so did we to be honest." He caught the awestruck look on Isaac's and laughed. "I take it you're also a total geek for that stuff."
"Completely," Isaac said without hesitation. "With no friends and a lot of time to kill, TV becomes an important part of your life."
Jackson's smile faltered but it returned again when he realized they'd struck on a decent topic of conversation.
"So who would you want to see if you could go?" he asked, sitting on the bed and motioning for Isaac to join him. When Isaac did, he handed him one of the Wii controllers that was fixed into a plastic wheel.
"Game of Thrones is there this year; those books are great so I guess that would be cool. True Blood and Doctor Who would be must-sees and I'd love to meet the creators of The Simpsons," Isaac said quickly and Jackson laughed at how eager he was. "Supernatural too, that's my all-time favourite show."
"Supernatural huh," Jackson said to himself and he reached back to grab the phone. Isaac wondered what he was doing but then he moved the phone so Isaac could see a picture of Lydia and Jackson's cousin standing either side of Jared Padalecki.
"You met Jared?" Isaac asked exasperated.
"Him and the other guy, Jensen I think his name was."
"Dude I could hit you right now."
Jackson smirked and put his arm around Isaac, pulling him close to his side so the taller boy had no escape from his sickeningly smug grin.
"Aw, you look precious when you're jealous," he laughed and gave Isaac a squeeze before pulling his arm back to have complete control of the Mario Kart menu that he was navigating. "He wants me to come back next year and take him again. I guess it wouldn't be totally impossible for you to come with."
Once again, Jackson laughed at his reaction. Isaac tried to respond but what came out resembled a spluttering sound and he stifled the noise with a cough.
"I'm serious, by the way," Jackson said still grinning. "You'd be welcome to come; it'd be nice for Sammy to have an even bigger nerd than him to talk to."
Isaac didn't say anything. He couldn't really. Instead he just grinned a wide, goofy, toothy grin that brought out another bout of laughter in Jackson but he didn't care because the offer was genuine and it was so nice; especially coming from Jackson.
Isaac was still grinning like a gormless fool as he tried to articulate a thank you when Jackson punched him on the arm. It wasn't hard but it was a little sore and Isaac flinched as it took him by surprise. He looked up at Jackson.
"Pick your character," Jackson said, as if nothing in the world was more important.
So Isaac did. He hovered over the blonde princess because he thought she looked pretty before he caught the amused expression on Jackson's face and he quickly scrolled past. He settled on Mario because he was one of only two characters that Isaac could name and Jackson had already chosen Luigi.
Apparently the circuit they were playing was called Luigi Circuit so Isaac immediately assumed that Jackson had given himself an advantage. But it turned out to not be true. In fact, Jackson didn't even win the first race and Isaac came 9th out of 12. He didn't even finish last!
Jackson showed him all of the controls and let him play alone (supervised and under the influence of a serious back seat driver of course) until he got better and eventually won a race.
The two played the game for well over three hours. After the first hour, Isaac got good enough to seriously challenge Jackson in some races.
They moved on to more adventurous courses and Isaac's game improved to the point that he actually led a race for an entire lap before Jackson (who was in something like 8th at the time) let off a blue shell that caused Isaac's Mario to explode and fall to 5th. Isaac forced a furious look onto his face and turned to Jackson, who was giggling maniacally and there was nothing forced about that.
Throughout their game, the two of them chatted and laughed and exchanged stories and pushed each other and shared a bag of tortilla chips that Jackson pulled out from the draw under the bed.
One time, Isaac looked like he was just about to turn the final corner in the lead when Jackson nudged him, he fell off the bed and lost control, gifting Luigi the winner's pedestal and causing Mario to have to settle with third place.
That was the thing that Isaac liked the most about Jackson. Outside of training, everybody – Boyd, Erica, Derek, Scott, even Peter – treated him as if he was some fragile thing that was about to break. They said whatever they wanted of course, they knew he was emotionally stronger than most, but they rarely touched him and when they did, it was cautiously. It was as if they thought that he was going to break into pieces if they poked him.
Not Jackson though; he never hesitated to be physical. Jackson never made him feel fragile or breakable and he never seemed to think of Isaac as one of those things either. Isaac loved it.
It took Isaac just short of three hours – one hundred and seventy six minutes, according to the game play time clock on the Wii menu – to finally beat Jackson without being pushed off of the bed or distracted.
Coconut Mall was the name of his site of victory.
The euphoric roar that came out of Isaac made Jackson start and after close to ten minutes of Isaac's gloating, Jackson decided that it was time to turn off the games console. Apparently, he was a sore loser.
If Isaac had kept count, he would've known that he'd won one race compare to the forty six that Jackson had won – in a row. But that didn't stop his gloating.
Eventually, Jackson suggested that they put a film on and so they ended up on the bed watching the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Jackson insisted that it was the best trilogy ever made – he refused to even acknowledge the fourth film.
"It's not a 'Pirates of the Caribbean' film if Keira Knightley isn't in it, that's the rule. Will Turner too," he'd said.
Isaac laughed and agreed. He didn't really mind if Keira Knightley was in it or not but Orlando Bloom's Will Turner was the main reason he liked the series so much.
Jackson lay on the bed and Isaac sat beside him, a little further down, closer to the TV.
"Dude, lie down, you look uncomfortable as hell," Jackson said. "Plus, you're blocking my view, you ass."
Isaac looked at him sceptically and Jackson rolled his eyes.
"Jesus," Jackson said, "we're 'pack', we're watching a movie and you're going to lie down next to me and whisper mean things about all our friends, that's how these things work."
Isaac's sceptics didn't shift but his body did. He lay down next to Jackson and found that the single bed was surprisingly wide enough for two people to comfortably fit on. Jackson curled an arm around Isaac's shoulder and skipped the film to the scene with the meeting of the Brethren Court claiming that 'Keira's totally badass in this scene'.
"Now, I've gotta remind you," Jackson said when Isaac was comfortable, "I'm straight and this is totally platonic."
"I'm serious," he added when Isaac began to laugh, "If I fall asleep and wake up with you blowing me in my sleep I'm not going to be happy. Well, it depends how good you are, but I'm still going to throw you outta that window."
"Okay," Isaac laughed, "I promise I won't blow you in your sleep."
"Or do anything, I know how gay minds work, Isaac, I've been best friends with Danny for years." Jackson looked deadly serious at this point and Isaac couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "If I wake up and there's even a boner poking into my leg, you're not coming Comic Con."
Isaac laughed again, still unsure of how serious the threat was but 100% sure that no amount of sleeping in a bed with Jackson would make him hard. He fixed his face into a solemn expression.
"I promise you won't wake up to a boner poking you in the leg." Isaac's mouth twitched upwards. "Besides, you're not my type anyway."
Jackson laughed and squeezed Isaac's shoulders. They watched the film and whispered and giggled like a pair of little girls at a sleepover.
At one point, Isaac realized how safe he felt cuddled up to Jackson like that and yet the whole thing did still feel completely platonic. They were pack.
"Hey, Jackson," Isaac asked quietly as Captain Jack held a dagger in one hand and the heart of Davy Jones in the other on-screen. "Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah, sure," Jackson replied. His voice was a little husky and Isaac could tell that he was falling asleep. "What's up?"
"Scott kissed me the other day," Isaac began. When Jackson didn't react, he assumed that he wasn't surprised, so he went on. "But you saw him with Allison today, right?" Jackson nodded. "Do you think he's messing me around or does he actually like me?"
Jackson didn't say anything for a fair amount of time. He didn't move either. Just when Isaac had thought his question had been ignored, Jackson said something.
"I think he's an idiot," he said slowly. "But, I think he does care about you. He's just not very good at timing or decision making."
"But what about Allison, do you think he'll get back with her?" Isaac asked, voicing his fear for the first time.
"Not if he knows what's good for him," Jackson said. "He's an absolute moron if he chooses her over you."
Isaac was touched by the sincerity in Jackson's voice.
"Now go to sleep," Jackson yawned, "And dream of pretty brown-eyed werewolves or whatever you dream of, but stop talking. I need my beauty sleep."
Isaac laughed a short laugh before settling back into the pillow. He was asleep within minutes.
Isaac didn't know if it was half an hour or half a day later when the pair was awoken. What he did know was that Scott's voice sounded panicked as he shouted through the apartment. Ten seconds after his eyes had opened, Isaac stood at the front door facing him.
"They found them," he said, panting. It took a lot for a werewolf to get seriously out of breath so Isaac knew that Scott must have ran full pelt the whole journey from his house to the apartment.
"Who found who?" Jackson came up behind Isaac rubbing his eyes; clearly he reacted worse to being woken up than Isaac did. Scott's eyes flicked between them with a mixture of anger and sadness. Clearly, he had the wrong end of the stick. But in the end, his desperation to pass along a message overcame his own feelings.
"Peter and Derek… found the Alphas. They know where… Erica and Boyd are," Scott said through deep breaths.
Isaac and Jackson gave Scott a minute to catch his breath. Then the three of them bolted out of the apartment, pulling the door closed behind them and activating the automatic locking system.
In the elevator, Scott turned to Isaac and explained.
"Peter and Derek were arguing in the street when they caught the scent. They followed it and Derek text me to tell me where they were. The Alphas' scents had gone but they picked up on Erica and Boyd's and another's. They don't know who it is yet but Derek thinks it's familiar."
Isaac took a moment to process the information. Apparently Derek had filled Scott in on the Alpha pack without telling him. Even after asking for Isaac's opinion on whether Scott should help or not.
"Okay," Jackson said, "So where are they?"
"They're at an abandoned bank. It makes sense right, big vaults for prisoners and dozens of hidey holes," Scott said quietly.
The three of them knew how dangerous this was going to be. An entire pack of Alphas versus a bunch of teenagers, a middle-aged undead guy and one single borderline suicidal Alpha; they had next to no chance.
"Is it just us?" Isaac asked.
"No," a voice said as the elevator opened. "I'm coming too."
A/N Because of how long it's taken me to set the storyline up and how I promised to try and update more than once a week, next week I'm going to treat you all to a massive battle scene and a chapter of what I estimate to be about 8k-12k words. A little way to thank you all for being so supportive and patient! Also, I've had a few messages asking about when there's going to be proper Scisaac so I'd just like to say that in the interests of spoilers, I can neither confirm nor deny that Chapter 9 is going to be long and extra fluffy!
Special shoutout to: joemon8, Rynlo94, EDANACAT and Aoi of the Anarchy. Thank you for the reviews and the very kind words (Although Allison Argent might not agree that all your words were kind!)
