Hello everyone! It's been a while, hasn't it? I know I said I was aiming to post October 1st. Life and work got in the way, but here's the next chapter! Nearly 6,000 words! I hope that you enjoy it and continue to leave kudos and comments! What do you think will happen next?
"Wanna...watch the fireworks," Isaac half-whined, half-wheezed as he sat on living room couch with one hand on his chest, coughs surfacing every few breaths. It pained Stiles to know that his son was missing out on the firework show that he'd been looking forward to since their plane had landed three days ago. Worse, even, was the fact that he and Derek hadn't thought about the smoke that would be lingering after the first few minutes until Isaac was coughing in Stiles' arms, a steady wheeze growing as he worked to catch his breath. And the humidity, which had greeted them the second they stepped outside of the airport and had followed them to the Hamptons, was doing a number on Isaac's breathing.
"I know, baby," Stiles cooed as he put the medication in the nebulizer cup, glancing up quickly to make sure Isaac hadn't started crying; that, he knew, would make things much worse. "I have an idea, though."
"Wanna go...back outside," he hiccupped, tears starting to stream down his face as he tried to turn to look out the window behind him. Stiles screwed the medicine cup onto the mask and turned the nebulizer on.
"Shh. We can watch the fireworks from right here, baby boy," Stiles explained softly as he adjusted the mask against Isaac's face. He then wiped his son's tears and kissed his forehead.
"H-how?" Isaac panted.
Stiles used the remote to switch the TV on and flipped through the lower channels until he found a news station broadcasting the firework display over the Hudson.
"These are the fireworks going on in New York City, only we get to see them with music in the background." Stiles smiled before moving to organize the mess of medication littering the coffee table and place it back into Isaac's backpack.
"Don't weave," Isaac sniffled, one hand toying with the tubing to his mask, the other clutching Balto, as Stiles went to put his backpack on the side table.
"I'm gonna stay right here and watch them with you," Stiles assured him, taking a seat beside Isaac on the couch, the two cuddling and watching in silence for a few minutes before they heard the back door slide open.
"How's he doing?" Derek asked as he entered with Max in his arms, her red and blue pinafore dress scrunched up so that her diaper cover was slightly exposed.
"Still pretty wheezy. I might have to give him a dose of Benadryl," Stiles explained as Derek sat down on the other side of Isaac, Max on his lap.
"Papa, look!" Isaac pointed to the TV. An explosion of blue and red filled the screen, Katy Perry's "Firework" playing in the background.
"You and Daddy snuck away to watch the good stuff!" Derek smirked, Isaac nodding happily now that he felt better about not being outside with everyone else. "Allison said she's going to get desert going once the show ends," he continued, Stiles asking if she'd need any help bringing the array of cakes and platters sitting on the dining room table outside.
As they chatted, Max leaned over from her place in Derek's arms, her little fingers opening and closing as she reached towards Isaac until finally, one hand had grabbed his shirt and the other was flat on his bare chest.
Stiles was the first to notice, eyebrows meeting as he tried to figure out what, exactly, was going on between their two children. The second he saw dark lines feeding up Max's arm, though, he knew. The infant let go after a few seconds, bursting into tears as the pain she'd extracted took effect in her little body.
"Max, you're way too young for that, baby girl," Derek soothed as he pulled her away, dark veins of pain traveling up his own arm as he tried to comfort her.
"What'd she do?" Isaac asked, rubbing at his chest in confusion; for a moment, he'd been able to breathe easier, the warmth that was fading from where Max had placed her tiny hand something that he wanted more of.
"She took some of your pain as her own," Stiles explained, looking over at Max as Derek rocked her from foot to foot, deciding how to explain it to his son. "Remember how I said Papa and Max can do some things that we can't do?"
"'Cause they're wolves?"
"Yes," he nodded, looking up at a now calming Max in Derek's arms. "She and Papa can sense things that you and I can't."
"She knowed I was sick?"
"Yes, and she wanted to help you feel better," Stiles explained, lips curving into a smile as he thought about how much Max's little gesture had meant.
"It means she really loves you," Derek beamed, proud of his little girl for being so brave and selfless.
"I love you too, Maxy," Isaac breathed as he smiled beneath the mask, the baby sniffling.
x
Stiles entered the kitchen nearly two hours later to the clatter of pots and pans, Allison's black hair bobbing up and down over the edge of the counter as she fought to shove them behind a door.
"Need any help?" he asked.
"No, but thanks" she answered, pushing the door shut. He heard a loud clank before Allison popped up and pushed her hair out of her face. "I hope Isaac is feeling better!"
"Yeah," Stiles said, rubbing the back of his head as he though about how Isaac had conked out the second his head hit the pillow; the attack had taken a lot out of him. "He gave us a scare but he's okay."
"Glad to hear it. Hopefully the rain tonight washes away all of the smoke from the fireworks. Not that we'll get to enjoy the beach tomorrow." Allison frowned as she began to pull clean dishes from the dishwasher.
"So we are getting that storm?" He'd been tracking it all morning, but Stiles had forgotten once they'd gone to the beach and the party had started.
"Yeah, they said it's going to be pretty intense. We should be okay, though. The dunes on this part of the road held up through Sandy, so I'm sure they can handle the remnants of a tropical storm."
Stiles grabbed a dishtowel as he listened and began to dry some of the plates that hadn't dried in the dishwasher.
"You know that you don't have to do that," Allison added with a smile, going to take the towel from him.
"I know," Stiles replied, his lips curving into one as well. "But I'm going to anyway." He winked at her and pulled away from a second, stealthy reach with a laugh.
"You really don't, though." Allison grabbed a spare towel and lightly hit his hip.
"I kind of need a distraction, so let me know what you need help with cleaning-wise," Stiles offered.
"Distraction from Scott?"
Stiles shrugged, suddenly feeling as though all of the air had been sucked from the room, and opened the nearest cabinet to put a dry plate away.
Allison pulled her lips inward for a moment and paused. "It's not what you think, Stiles," she said softly. "I know that Scott is self-centered…"
"Understatement of the century," Stiles mumbled, putting another dry plate into the cabinet.
"…and that he gives in to every little thing that Tessa wants."
"We're…working on it, okay? Can you just promise me you'll give him another chance before you guys head out?" she pleaded.
Stiles paused with another plate in his hand. "Who said we were heading out?"
"I heard your conversation with Derek before. After you got Isaac to bed and Derek was changing Max. I was grabbing a late birthday gift for a friend before she left. I'm sorry, it wasn't my business. I walked away as soon as I realized." Allison's eyes were suddenly wide and glassy with regret, face half-crumpled in a way Stiles hadn't seen since her mother had passed. He could sense a deep pain in the way her shoulders were rolled forward, but he couldn't explain it. "I'm sorry," she continued, but Stiles wasn't upset that she had listened. "I should have never been listening to your conversation."
"Hey, we're not heading out," Stiles promised, putting the plate down on the counter so that he could put his hand on her shoulder. "At least not until I talk with Scott. And I'm not upset with you for listening to my conversation with Derek. The door was open and it's your house." She just nodded, her eyes closed as she looked away.
"I just feel like you guys are having the worst time." She sniffled, wiping under her eye with the tips of her fingers.
"Definitely not the worst," Stiles tried to reassure her.
"Not the best, though, either." Stiles couldn't argue with that, but he refused to say so, especially with Allison so distraught.
"I know what we need to make this better," Stiles announced, eyeing the row of wine glasses hanging from the inside of the cabinet next to them. Between Allison tending to the guests, Derek keeping Max calm, and Stiles handling Isaac's attack, none of the adults had gotten a chance to really start drinking. Scott had managed to nurse a beer while barbequing, but that had been cut short by his argument with Stiles. "We need wine. Stat. Where's the corkscrew?"
"Yeah, we're not fancy enough for a corkscrew," Allison joked with a deep laugh as she pulled a bottle of Relax wine from the refrigerator and began to unscrew the metal cap. Stiles grabbed two glasses from the cabinet and set them on the counter, half-full dishwasher and drying towels forgotten.
"No Merlot?" Derek asked upon entering the kitchen with Scott a few minutes later, the two taking in the sight of Allison and Stiles downing the last drop of their first glass.
"Oh no! We forgot to make a toast!" Allison yelled, rushing to get two more glasses.
"Merlot is for wimps," Scott huffed, though there was a playful edge to his comment. "Where's the Jack?"
"Wait, are the kids asleep?" Stiles asked, almost forgetting for a split second that they were all, in fact, parents, and not about to start pre-gaming for a night out on the town.
"Out cold," Scott commented, pulling a bottle of Jack out from the custom wet bar between the living room and kitchen., Stiles thought as he poured two more glasses of wine for him and Allison.
"He speaks the truth," Derek added, coming behind Scott and setting up two old-fashioned glasses to drink from. "Max must have exhausted herself when she took some of Isaac's pain after his attack."
"She what?!" Scott asked, the most emotion Stiles and Derek had seen all trip coming out in just two words.
"I leaned over with her and she grabbed his chest. It happened so quickly," Derek explained as Scott filled the glasses to the brim.
"Scott's just jealous!" Allison prodded, poking Derek on the arm. Her wine glass was empty, laugh vibrant and buzzed. "He's been trying to teach Tessa how to do that for years!"
"Anyway," Stiles started, he and Derek catching each other's eyes before he detoured the conversation to a more humorous topic.
Nearly a half an hour later, Stiles and Scott were walking the beach together, exchanging stories about beating supernatural forces in high school and visiting each other at college while Allison and Derek stayed behind to keep an eye on the kids. They'd gone ten houses to the left, and then even more to the right. So many, so, that Stiles had lost count. They'd done two shots before leaving the house, and he'd just finished off a heavy cup of Jack and Coke. It had seemed like the more walking they did, the more the silence and tension between them was able to find its way to the surface. They'd been walking for what felt like miles when Scott finally spoke up.
"There's stuff I want to say, but you know I'm not good with words."
"Maybe just say the first thing that comes to mind?" Stiles knew he was making a mistake the second the words came from his mouth, but Scott was already talking and he couldn't take it back.
"Well, it feels like you've changed a lot," Scott tried. "Since Isaac and Max. And it's weird."
"I could say the same about you with Tessa," Stiles added, and though he wanted the conversation to say positive, he couldn't help but feel it wouldn't last long.
"Yeah, but Isaac's different." And there it was.
"But still 100% loveable."
"I didn't say that he wasn't."
"But you said he was different."
"Because he is."
"You make it sound like a bad thing."
"I told you I'm not good with words; I can't get my emotions out and not have everyone hate me for it!"
Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but Stiles was starting to think that maybe Scott hadn't ever really been held accountable for his words, and therefore had never had to think about choosing them carefully.
"Forget it." Scott groaned. "I had things I wanted to say and I thought I could say them but I can't." He stood facing the ocean, his head shaking.
Stiles fell in line beside him, careful to keep a food between them, his hands slipping deep into his pockets. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I should be a better listener, more patient." Barefoot, Stiles squished his anxious toes into the sand, wind whipping off of the water and blowing his hair away from his face. "It's just that, some days, I feel like all of my patience has been eaten up. Between work, and the kids, and life, I just shut down. You know me. I'm a pretty patient person, but lately I'm just not."
Scott stiffened, holding his breath. He parted his lips and turned his head to speak, but quickly looked away.
"What is it, Scott?" Stiles asked, inching closer. He resisted the urge to put his hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Nothing." Scott took a step away.
"Obviously it isn't nothing. Did my family do something to offend your family? Do you want us to leave?" Stiles finally asked, just trying to be honest.
"No, that isn't what I was saying! You're putting words in my mouth-"
"I have to put words in your mouth, Scott! You've been damn near silent for the last year and now you're right in front of me and I can barely get two words out!"
"I know I haven't called much…"
"Much? Much?! How about at all, Scott? You didn't call once. Not when Isaac was in the ICU, not when Max came home. Hell, you didn't even fucking call when I had my attack a week and a half ago! What am I supposed to think?" Stiles' temper was rising, hands balling into fists.
"That maybe I have my own things going on?" Scott shoved his hands deep into his own jean pockets and lifted his shoulders as if he were cold.
"Then why didn't you reach out and talk to me about them?"
"Because…" he trailed, looking away.
"Because?"
Scott shifted uncomfortably on the sand, ocean crashing a few feet away in the darkness. "Because…it involves Allison. A-and Derek-"
"Where are you going with this?" Stiles asked, suddenly curious.
"I think Allison and Derek are having an affair," Scott stated.
"What the hell?!"
"It makes sense, Stiles!" Scott argued, his tone rising. "I obviously don't want it to but it does!"
"Derek is gay, and married! To me, your supposed best friend! And Allison freaking loves you!" Stiles wanted to add the word somehow, but let it go because he was still in shock at the accusation.
"Are you sure Derek is really gay, though?"
"We're not seriously having this conversation right now."
"I don't know, I just feel like he doesn't fit the definition-"
"Okay, Scotty. Define what makes someone gay, because I'm pretty sure Derek and I have been it since birth."
"He's just not…you know…"
"Not feminine enough?"
"That's not what I said!"
"You think he's pretending?"
"No…"
"You fucking think getting married in California was easy, even after Prop 8 nearly destroyed our dreams? And that adopting two babies with special needs was also a walk in the park? Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you, man?!"
"It's just that they are always out late when Derek comes to visit and they email constantly," he explained. "Allison stays up until 2AM sending work emails, which is really just a ploy for being up late for West Coast time. I didn't think anything of it until she left her inbox up one day and I saw a message from her to Derek saying something about his estate and bank accounts. It seemed like they wanted to run away or something."
"Are you on crack?"
"Even if I was, it wouldn't affect me," Scott explained, Stiles shaking his head at the ridiculousness of Scott's reply, how pathetic and so it actually was. All he could do was turn away and walk toward the beach house.
"Can you just forget I even said anything?"
"Yeah, sounds good, Scotty," Stiles said with sarcasm as he continued to walk away.
"Good, I just-"
"I was being sarcastic! Dude, you can't just say things like that and then pretend it never happened! Like the parenting thing earlier. But this? A fucking affair? Something is seriously wrong with you if you think you need to make shit like this up to keep yourself from feeling guilty." Stiles paced across the deck before entering the house, gears turning as he thought about the situation. Not that he believed it to be true. It couldn't be.
x
"Scotty here just tried to tell me that you two are seeing each other," Stiles chortled as he entered through the back sliding glass door, Allison and Derek's faces twisted in confusion at their places at the dining room table, Scott entering a second later.
"You do know that I'm gay, right?" Derek asked, laughing, thinking it was all a joke. "And that I'm married? To a man? To your best friend?"
"Scott, you better not be serious," Allison warned, eyes flaring with disapproval.
"You kept meeting for lunch and dinner when he came for work. You'd be out late some nights, and then you had all of those emails and texts to Derek about estates and bank accounts and it just seemed like maybe…" he trailed nervously, realizing no one was believing his story.
"He thinks you guys are planning to run away together," Stiles continued, using his hands for comedic effect. Allison and Derek stared in confusion. "Yeah, Steve Miller Band style," he continued. "Take the money and run! It's actually a pretty good plan-"
"Except that there is no plan," Allison stated sternly, Scott opening his mouth to explain. "No," she stopped him. "I don't even want to hear what you've conjured in that brain of yours regarding this crazy anxiety!"
"Allison has been helping me track the Hale family fortune," Derek interjected calmly. "When it was stolen a while back, we thought everything had been taken, but it turns out we had a vault of fine art in New York."
"So I've been helping Derek verify and value each piece," Allison added. "Which required meetings, emails, and texts."
"Because you're a curator." The statement rolled off of Scott's lips, the understanding that everything he'd been busying himself with for the last few months was all a complete misunderstanding. One that he'd just pulled Stiles into. Had he really tried to tell him that Derek might not be gay? Had he really allowed himself to be so…delusional?
"I didn't say anything to you, Scott, because we didn't know if Derek legally owned all of the art. Peter would have tried for a cut if he heard through the grapevine, and we didn't want to take the chance."
"But you knew?" Scott asked Stiles.
"Derek?" Stiles asked, voice barely a whisper, his eyes catching his husband's. He could feel the air conditioning cooling his wet clothes, his legs suddenly weak beneath him. Secrets. Vaults of art. Family fortunes.
"I wasn't allowed to tell you," Derek tried, moving closer. "My lawyer made me sign paperwork stating that I couldn't let anyone outside of the curator and him know until we were sure. I know we promised not to keep secrets and it's been eating me from the inside out since I signed that damn paperwork! I wanted to tell you! You know me well enough to know that I wanted to!"
"H-how much?" Stiles asked, gripping the back of a chair for support.
"My last estimate was in excess of 15 million," Allison added.
"15…million?" Stiles couldn't breathe, and this time, it wasn't his lungs. Panic gripped his throat, causing him to cough. His damp clothes clung to his body as Derek sat him in the chair he'd been leaning on. Stiles closed his eyes, berating himself for even panicking at all. 15 million! They could pay off their house and cars. Hell, they could move and buy new cars and send both kids to college! It was good news, and yet, he couldn't get himself to stop the growing sense of fear surrounding the subject.
"Stiles?" Derek asked a moment later when he was sure his husband had calmed down enough to take a few sips of water Allison had brought over.
"I'm okay," he said, his hand shaking as he tipped the glass to his lips again.
"I'm sorry. This isn't how I wanted to tell you." Derek looked up and glared at Scott.
"Well," Allison said, breaking the tension in the room. "Now that we know Derek and I aren't running off with either of our family fortunes, I think it would be best if we all tried to get some sleep. Yeah?"
x
Max's fussing began before the first cough echoed down the hallway from Isaac's guest room. Derek's eyes opened at the first of the coughs, their sound growing croupy and congested as the minutes passed. Max's cries grew into wails from her Pack 'n Play, signaling that she sensed Isaac was having another attack.
"I've got the baby," Derek said, yawning as he slowly rolled out from beneath the covers. Stiles did the same on the opposite side of the bed, his feet shuffling across the wooden floorboards on autopilot as he made his way toward Isaac, eyes blinking in the darkness.
"Daddy," Isaac whined when Stiles arrived, a string of coughs following. Stiles flicked the bedside lamp on and tried to assess the situation based on Isaac's pallor. His blue eyes were glassy in the light, blonde curls matted from sleep. The red tint in his cheeks was deep, making Stiles realize that Ize's attack had been going on long before the coughing had woken them up.
"Hang on, baby," Stiles soothed as he leaned across to the bench antecedent the bed and pulled the child's inhaler and spacer from his backpack.
"Everything okay?" Scott asked suddenly from the doorway, hand stroking his dark beard as he took in the sight of Isaac with concerned eyes. Stiles' jaw tightened. He wished that Scott wasn't there, watching and making judgments.
"Yeah, it's just another attack," he said with a small wave as he sat beside his son, secured the mask and spacer contraption against Ize's face, and pressed down on the canister. Two small inhales of the medication caused a wave of chesty coughs that had Stiles helping Isaac sit up away from the pillow. When he realized Scott wasn't leaving, he added, "You can go back to bed. I've got this."
"Where's Derek?" Scott ignored Stiles' comment and moved deeper into the room, finding a place to sit on the bench beside Isaac's backpack.
"Handling Max," Stiles explained, too tired to argue with Scott anymore. "She gets worked up when Isaac is sick, so we tend to keep them separated until we can settle things." As he said this, Stiles could hear Max screeching down the hall, an image of Derek with her beneath his shirt and pacing between the glass doors and their bathroom filling his mind. How they hadn't woken up all of Dune Road by now, he wasn't sure.
Stiles' attention returned to Isaac, who began to sniffle between wheezes, one of his hands the only thing holding his son's sleepy body up in the bed. "B-Balto! Where's Balto?" he cried, tears streaming down his cheeks, one hand twisting the front of his pajama shirt as he fought to control his breathing. "He needs his 'haler!"
A pit of defeat briefly settled in Stiles' stomach at the thought that Isaac was definitely regressing back to using Balto as a platform; he hated that Derek's comment from earlier was proving to be true. He thought maybe it was because his asthma was suddenly public in a way it hadn't been before; they were 3,000 miles from home and he was having an attack in the middle of the night in front of a person he'd just met two days ago. It took Stiles a few moments to find the fluffy wolf beneath the sheets and hand it over, Isaac a mess of tears, snot, and long, drawn-out wheezes.
"I think Balto needs a treatment, baby," Stiles announced, rubbing his son's back in the small, soothing circles that he wished could do more than they did.
"No!" Isaac whimpered, which threw him into a coughing attack that had him dry heaving with the tail end of each horrifying cough. His son was in his arms instantly, Stiles' feet moving toward the doorway and bathroom, but it was too late.
Scott had grabbed the small garbage pail by the doorway and met them in the middle of the room, the rim of the plastic beneath Isaac's face just in time for him to start spewing a mix of bile and saliva.
"Oh, Ize," Stiles soothed, making sure his son was sitting up enough in his arms that he wouldn't start choking, the vomiting having thrown him into a new level of hysterics that included sobs and gasping.
"I can get the nebulizer ready," Scott proposed, a wad of tissues from the nightstand suddenly appearing in his other hand. He scooped the mess around Isaac's mouth and chin and threw it into the garbage without a second thought.
"Do you remember how?" Stiles asked, realizing too late that he should have just said thank you.
Scott just nodded as he handed the garbage pail over to Stiles, Isaac's next severe coughing fit causing another round of dry heaving.
"He's not usually like this," Stiles found himself explaining as he maneuvered Isaac and the garbage pail back to the bed, though he wasn't sure what to add after such a statement. His brain was foggy from lack of sleep and Isaac's retching was preoccupying his senses. He wanted to ask where Allison was, but the sound of her footsteps passing through the hallway was enough of an answer. A moment later, he heard her and Derek conversing, the volume of Max's sobs lowering an octave.
"I'm sorry," Stiles offered, cradling Isaac and the garbage can in his arms.
"You don't have to apologize," Scott promised softly as he gathered the pieces to the nebulizer and brought them over to the nightstand.
"My son just barfed all over you and you're still willing to wrangle with the nebulizer at three in the morning, so I think some thanks are in order."
"No!" Isaac interrupted with a sob at the sight of the mask, his coughing subsiding briefly to give way to wheezing.
"Ize, honey," Stiles tried to soothe, surprised that his son was giving him such a hard time about the machine. "You do this in your sleep all the time," he tried to joke, but Isaac was past that point, his crying and thrashing so incessant that it was starting to remind Stiles of one of Max's tantrums. "If we don't do a treatment you'll have to go to the hospital."
"T-tessa said…I was…s-stupid…'cause I couldn't…breave after the fireworks…and…and…she said…Mr. Fishy was…weird,!" he sobbed between breaths, chest retracting with each inhale.
"Did not!" she whined from doorway, but it was obvious from the way her eyes averted Scott's, who were pinned on her since he'd heard her voice, that she was lying.
"I think I know what's going on here," Stiles said softly as he adjusted a misting Mr. Fishy over Isaac's nose and mouth and checked that the strap wasn't too tight. "Remember when you used to get scared by your asthma, Isaac?" He nodded as Stiles rested him against a stack of propped pillows, the medicine finally filling his lungs and granting him enough relief to calm him down.
"And you were afraid of the wheezing and the mask and the medicine?" More nodding. "Maybe we can tell Tessa about it so she isn't so afraid anymore, either, hmm?" he offered, looking to Isaac, and then Scott, for approval.
"I used to have asthma, too, Tess," Scott interjected as he pulled her into his arms and then onto his lap on the twin bed across from Isaac's. "Before the bite. Grandma used to stay up with me all night after an attack to make sure I was okay."
She looked at Scott, and then to Isaac. "Why's he making that sound?" Tessa asked timidly, referring to Isaac's wheezing beneath the mask. Scott paused, unsure of how to answer. Stiles could see him thinking, knew there were images and diagrams of the lungs and their intricacies flooding his mind, but knew that the words might not come.
It made Stiles think that maybe he had been right about what he'd said regarding Scott and his actions. That they'd always spoken louder than words because Scott had never been good with words, never had a knack for articulating his thoughts and feelings. After their walk on the beach, and the crazy accusations and truths, Stiles couldn't help but think that maybe Scott was the one who needed the most help. Because as lost as Stiles' family had been in the last year, Scott, somehow, suddenly seemed worse-off. And Stiles wasn't exactly sure why. Just knew that something was hiding deep within his friend, and knowing that was the only reason he hadn't run off with his family yet. Maybe it was the way Scott was holding Tessa at that very moment, like he wanted to squeeze her and fix something, but was holding back so much that it was Tessa that had snuggled herself deep in his arms. Or maybe it was the brief flash of terror in Scott's eyes when his daughter had asked him to explain something and he'd fallen short. Either way, it terrified Stiles. Terrified him because even if he didn't want to, he knew for sure now, that something serious was going on with Scott.
"It's because the muscles in his lungs have the hiccups," Stiles explained, gaining Tessa's attention as he raised Isaac's shirt just enough to expose his minor chest retractions. "We all have little roadways in our lungs called airways that lets the air we breathe drive around like cars. Your airways are always open like this," Stiles explained, lifting a rounded hand up to show her. "But sometimes Ize's muscles get the hiccups and go from normal size to really small," he continued, closing his fist a few centimeters. "When that happens he feels like he can't breathe because he can't get enough air through the little roads in his lungs."
"The cloudy stuff around Isaac's mask is medicine that helps stop the hiccups so he can breathe easier," Scott added, eyes meeting Stiles'. "I had to do the same thing when I was your age."
"Really?" Tessa asked, looking up at her father.
"Yup. Twice a day for my whole life until I got the bite. I had take my inhaler like the one behind Uncle Stiles everywhere I went, too, in case I had an attack like Isaac."
"But then when you were a wolf you didn't need it anymore?"
"Just a few times after becoming a wolf, but that was a long, long time ago," Scott assured his daughter, not wanting to think about Theo or the Dread Doctors or the way he had almost forgotten what it was like to struggle for air until his senior year.
"He should be okay now. Thank you, Scott, for your help. I appreciate it." Stiles pushed his fingers through Isaac's curls and watched his eyes close.
"Let me know if you need anything," Scott said as he lifted Tessa into his arms and left the room. "Night."