With each passing minute of the day, the restlessness within Isaac worsens.
It feels as if his skin is crawling; not with any bugs skittering across him but as if the entire surface of his body is just shifting and pulling to change.
He can feel the coming night in his bones and it's calling him to do serious damage once the moon rises. He feels the hunger in his gut, envisions violence in his mind and his fingernails even tingle with the want to extend to slash through flesh.
All in all, it does not bode well for the party.
He returns to the depot after changing and finds Derek sitting before an old steamer trunk.
Isaac moves curiously towards the chest as the man flips the lid open; tribal tattoo looking design on the inside of trunk catches his eye.
"What is that?" he asks, tracing the swirling pattern.
"It's a triskele," Boyd provides the answer before Derek can. "Spirals mean different things," the other boy expands when they all turn to look at him. "Past, present, future. Mother, father, child."
"Huh," Erica huffs softly, drawing Isaac's attention. "Brains and brawn. You have been holding out on me."
Boyd doesn't look her way at the softly spoken words that lacked any of her usual sarcasm and sounded sincerely fascinated. Isaac swears he could see a blush on the boy's cheeks from the look Erica is giving. He finds himself smiling at his young pack mates; thinking maybe Erica's lustful antics toward Boyd earlier weren't just a passing fancy.
The girl had cleaned up as well while he was away. She had clearly showered and changed into clothing that actually looked comfortably casual with only a hint at sexy. Her gunked up make-up has been replaced with a more natural look that would have made him question whether she wore any cosmetics at all if not for the red on her lips and cheeks. She looks good and she looks totally focused on Boyd.
Interesting, he files the signs of her growing crush away for possible ammunition in the future.
"Know what it means to me?" Derek asks with a faint hint of pride in his expression at Boyd's show of knowledge.
"Alpha, Beta, Omega?" the apt pupil says with a slight show of doubt at his own accuracy.
"That's right," the Alpha nods and rises. "It's a spiral. It reminds us that we can all rise to one and fall to another. Betas can become Alphas, but Alphas can fall to Betas or even Omegas."
Like Scott, Isaac thinks, but doesn't say; imaging the day likely to come when McCall leads this pack.
Isaac really has nothing against Derek, but the man is struggling with so much of this while Scott manages the leadership role and makes it all look so easy despite his young years. Even the Alpha respects the teenager so it's no wonder that Isaac and Boyd both want to model themselves after Scott. Derek just doesn't have the makings for an Alpha like Scott did.
A tremor goes through him at the thought of the other boy as Alpha. Isaac can see himself standing proudly as Beta beside Scott; can see himself submitting to the other boy, following and obeying whatever Scott deemed best for the pack.
Before he can drift off to fantasies of himself on his knees before Scott, Derek begins sorting through the contents of the trunk. The clink and rattle of chains startles him back from thoughts of how pleasing it might be to submit to Scott and reminds him of the darker implications of submission. Isaac watches his current Alpha pulling things out of that old chest and tries very very hard not to think about why Derek has these things.
"There's a price you pay for this kind of power," the man is saying while holding a belt with chains dangling from it. "You get the ability to heal, but tonight you're going to want to kill anything you can find."
Isaac takes the belt because Derek forces it into his hands and the weight of the item surprises him.
"Good thing I had my period last week, then," Erica interjects and Isaac really wonders why Derek thought this pack needed a girl.
Or why that girl, he shakes his head to try and dispel the overly personal information he did not need to know.
"This one's for you," Derek all but smirks while holding up a circlet with screws all through it and Isaac does not want to think about how that gets worn.
"Oh, joy," she drawls with insincerely. "I knew you'd be giving me jewelry eventually."
"Tonight is going to be hard on all of us," the Alpha continues after tossing her the metal crown so she could get a feel for what she'd be wearing. "That's why it's vitally important to stay together," he digs out a pair of leg shackles to throw to Boyd before giving Isaac a pointed look. "I'll do what I can to limit the damage, but I can't stop you if you're not here."
"I'll be with Scott," Isaac defends.
"Scott may be able to keep a grip on himself, but can you see him managing that and keeping you from busting loose?"
"Yes. I can."
Derek stands running a length of heavy chain through his hands and studies Isaac closely for a few minutes.
"Go get something to eat," the Alpha turns to order Erica and Boyd.
"With what? Our good looks?" Erica scoffs. "Sure, they are ridiculously good looks, but…"
Derek drops the length of chain and digs a worn leather wallet out of his back pocket. He thumbs the folds open, plucks out a few bills then hands them to the girl.
"You're a stripper, right?" she takes the money without taking her eyes from the other money in that wallet. "That's where the money comes from."
Isaac considers throwing the belt at her to shut her up before she spoils their favorite game of guessing where the money got money for a Camaro or anything given he never did anything remotely work like.
"Go," the Alpha growls without amusement at her guess.
She rolls her eyes at the growl and looks past the man to ask Isaac, "Coming with?"
"Bring us back a pizza," Derek answers for him.
The tone wipes the careless expression from Erica's face and causes Isaac's shoulders to tense and straighten. The Alpha is serious about something and that something clearly revolves around Isaac's siding with Scott; a choice that could get him cast from the pack if he's lucky or torn to shreds by the elder werewolf if his luck runs to form.
Sensing danger but knowing of no way to prevent it, the girl gives Isaac a sympathetic look, mouths the words 'good luck' then grabs Boyd's elbow and bolts.
Isaac looks at the belt he's still holding then he throws it back into the trunk as soon as they're alone.
"So this is where you beat me around for backtalking now?"
"I'm not your father, Isaac," Derek sighs and rolls his shoulders to pop a muscle in his back. "Sit."
Not wanting to get any more marks against himself in the man's book, Isaac drops immediately to the ground and sits in the dust and grime like an idiot. Derek actually smirks at the quick obedience before he flips the steamer trunk closed and settles himself on the chest.
"The moon makes us hungry for more than violence," the man says unexpectedly. "It stirs all of our basest instincts; to fight, to feed and to fuck."
Isaac resists the urge to snigger like the adolescent he still technically is as he senses that Derek is actually preparing to give him 'the talk.'
"What's happening between Scott and you-"
"There's nothing happening," he interrupts instinctively.
Derek just looks at him.
Isaac's gaze drops and he squirms under that gaze; biting his tongue against the urge to speak ever again.
"This thing that isn't happening between you and McCall," the Alpha resumes, "it isn't going to make tonight easier for either of you. Unless you can control it; use it to your advantage."
Isaac looks up at that.
"Like Scott uses what he feels for Allison?"
Derek arches a brow at the mention of the girl's name.
"He has an anchor. It's the only thing that can save you on a night like tonight. You have to find something meaningful to you. Bind yourself to it and it keeps you inside; in control."
"What is it for you?" Isaac leans forward curiously to ask.
"Anger," the man scoffs; seemingly at himself. "If you're raging all the time then what's a little bit of moonlight madness?"
"But it isn't like that for Scott."
"And it won't be like that for you," Derek sighs. "Don't try to be like anyone else here, Isaac. We all have our own demons to wrestle with and you know how to fight them just as well as anyone else; better, probably."
It's another reminder of his father and Isaac doesn't respond to it on the surface.
Inside, though, he remembers his first time in the freezer. The blackness pressing in all around him as he heard the muffled rattle of chain being dragged over the outside of the appliance to seal him in. He remembers all the screams and sobs he had hurled into that darkness; curses and please for freedom that only came when he stopped struggling against his imprisonment. He remembers clawing until his middle and index fingernails tore off and panicking at the lack of fresh air until the darkness overtook him and he passed out; thinking that he had died.
He remembers how quickly he had learned to stop fighting the darkness and just sink into it after that. For every time his father locked him into that tomb, the man got him out of it. The only lesson Isaac ever got from it all was to stop fighting and just sink into it.
Some demons cannot be wrestled; they must be embraced.