Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or its characters

These drabbles can be read chronologically or not. Dealer's choice. I'm writing them in a progression style but they all pretty much stand alone.

Derek never realized how empty the loft is until he's alone. It's cavernous almost, especially with the echoing sound of water still dripping off everything.

"Derek?"

He doesn't answer when Isaac calls his name. He had known it was him before he even said anything, before he even opened the door.

Stiles and Scott are too loud; Stiles with his clumsy human gait and Scott just embarrassingly loud for a werewolf. Erica's steps are daintier. Cora and Boyd walk with purpose. Peter he'd never hear coming. So that just leaves Isaac.

Still he's surprised he's back. He hadn't expected him to come back after he returned the teacher to wherever she was going. She had looked so scared. He almost felt sorry for her. First being trapped in a basement with him, Cora, and Boyd, and now this? She couldn't catch a break.

He's not sure if he wants to see Isaac now, he'd rather be alone with his failure to literally lick his wounds in peace, but doesn't move when he hears him coming up the stairs. "Derek are you-"I'm fine." He grumbles when Isaac is in the doorway, tired mentally and physically from the fight, and thinks that will be the end of it.

But it never is with Isaac. Despite what people think about him he is very caring and compassionate towards others, almost as much as McCall. So it doesn't surprise him when he hears the shuffle of feet across the room that stop just outside of his vision trained at the floor.

"It's not your fault," he tells him, empathetic, and Derek closes his eyes. "Kali, Ethan and Aiden, they made you-"I know." Derek cuts in again. But that still doesn't make it any less worse.

Boyd is gone.

Erica and Stiles had taken him to Denton's to get patched up. He was worse for wear, but with time and a little supernatural healing he should be fine. But if he hadn't focused, trained his claws to miss on purpose and retract just enough not to puncture anything vital when the twins pushed them in, it would be a different story. Deucalion would have gotten his way.

"He's hurt, because of me."

"Because of them," Isaac corrects with a serious look in his eye, now by his side, like always, kneeling down next to Derek's knees like a knight waiting for his lord's next command. "And we'll make them pay. If those twins are stupid enough to come back to school I'll kill them myself and then-"No!"

Isaac seems startled by Derek's outburst and flinches the hand on his shoulder away. Figures he would think that that was what upset him.

"Don't…don't go near them." Derek says, looking at the Beta in earnest. "We almost lost Boyd and Erica twice because of them. I can't lose you."

He doesn't mean for the words to sound so raw and open but he's too tired for pretenses. He can play it off like he's worried about all his Betas, that he's more worried and protective of Isaac because he is his first of the pack, that it's because Isaac needs him more than the others who have families to go to, but he knows it's not true. He's told himself these lies to himself so many times that he can't even pretend to believe them anymore. He doesn't need Isaac as an Alpha. He needs Isaac as Derek.

"Your shoulder," the small cracked sound of Isaac's voice breaks Derek's gaze away from his face and follows the other's eye trained on his dislocated shoulder.

"Leave it," he grumbles while looking back down. The pain is helping him focus.

"Don't be stubborn. If it's not lined up it won't heal." Isaac berates, sounding like he's the more experienced werewolf. Derek would have laughed if he had it in him.

"Maybe I don't want it to heal."

"What good will that do anyone?" Derek shifts his gaze back to Isaac's blue ones and feels more than sees the boy shift from his knees to beside him. The touch of his hands, warm and almost scalding to his cool skin, on his injured limb is both a welcome weight and heavy curse. "On three, ready?" Isaac asks and Derek nods, "one." Derek roars before gritting his teeth as white hot pain courses through him. But it's quickly gone as the realigned shoulder heals instantly and takes the pain along with the injury. "See, good as new." Isaac says with a slight smile, and Derek wants to call him a little-shit or something for mocking his pain.

But when he looks up to say something to Isaac he realizes how close he is. Very close. Too close.

'Too close, too close' His brain fires off like a warning and sends relays for him to back off because at his distance he can feel Isaac's shaky breath across his face, smell the lingering scent of mint from the gum he had earlier, see that his lips are kind of chapped which is probably why his tongue flicks out to wet them when Derek's eyes flicker down to them. 'Too close, too close, too close…not close enough.'

It hardly takes any movement at all for that last space between them to be gone. They're already so close. It just takes Derek a lift of his chin for it to be gone. He was right. Isaac's lips are chapped. Wetting them didn't help much, if at all.

It's not a kiss for the record books, nor for a romance novel. In fact, it's more just a press of his lips against Isaac's. If it wasn't for the pursing it could hardly be called a kiss at all, just two sets of lips touching. But it feels good. It feels very good. His newly healed arm reaches up to lace his fingers into Isaac's curly hair so he can pull him all that much closer and deepen the kiss. He probably has no idea what he's doing. This is probably his first kiss.

The thought sends Derek reeling back into himself and the hand that had originally been intended to pull Isaac closer is pushing him away.

"Derek….?" Isaac mumbles in a sigh before Derek bolts from the corner of the bed and out of the room. "Derek!"

Thanks to all those that followed, faved, and reviewed last time. No one was diggin' the virtual taffy, so just confetti sprinkles to all those that review this time.