Teen Wolf Fic: Come A Little Closer (If You Dare) (2/2, Isaac/Danny, PG-13)
Come A Little Closer (If You Dare) - Part One
With a sigh Danny checked his phone for the fifth time in less than ten minutes and looked around the street again. He and Isaac had made plans to meet at six at the diner on main and first street, with the intent that they'd find something to do after they ate. Danny had been wavering between suggesting they see a movie, where they could sit close for a few hours but not really talk, or maybe just hanging out for a while and then going to a club. He wasn't really sure if Isaac was the kind of guy that liked going to clubs, they'd never discussed it, but he supposed it was a moot point if Isaac wasn't going to show up at all.
He checked his phone again and watched as the time flipped over to 6:15 with still no messages, and after a moment of internal debate about whether or not he was being stupid about this, he typed out a text to Isaac asking if he was going to be late. Hitting send before he could stop himself, Danny shoved his phone in his pocket and tried not to worry too much. One of the reasons Damian had cited when he and Danny had broken up was that Danny was supposedly neurotic and controlling. Danny didn't think that was true, he just didn't like being late for things, but the words still came back to him at the most inopportune moments. "There's probably just some werewolf stuff going down," he told himself, and then started worrying for an entirely different reason.
His guns were stowed in the trunk of the car, carefully tucked in with the spare tire so if he got pulled over speeding to the latest crisis it wouldn't be immediately obvious he was carrying unlicensed weapons. Danny had some serious envy over the trunk of the Winchester's Impala and on multiple occasions had considered getting together with Lydia, Stiles, and Boyd to figure out if they could engineer something similar for their own cars. Before Danny could work himself into enough of a panic that he went back to his car to arm himself, his phone buzzed with a new message.
'Com 2 teh den', the text read, and Danny jogged down the block to his car immediately. The message had come from Isaac's phone, but that wasn't Isaac's texting style at all. Isaac preferred to spell out words and use punctuation and add odd little smilies at the end of his messages. Sometimes Danny couldn't figure out what the smilies were supposed to be representing but they always made him smile anyway. Traffic eased up as soon as he hit the industrial area of the town, the main drag mostly vacant buildings of businesses that had gone under a few years back. The train depot had been a functional for maybe ten years before the trains stopped coming and local government gave up and let everyone use the interstate to get into the city.
Danny parked without any consideration for the parking spaces that were now just faded and broken lines and took an extra minute to arm himself before he hurried down into the train depot, wondering for the dozenth time what had possessed Derek to think that this was an awesome place to hang out for long periods of time. Sure, it kind of had a bat cave feel to it, but Danny was having some serious reconsiderations on whether or not the bat cave would actually be a comfortable place to hang out and plan for the next disaster. "Beacon Hills is not Gotham City," Danny told himself as he descended the last few steps and looked around for the latest emergency.
"Damn straight," Erica said, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she turned to raise her eyebrows in Danny's direction. "We do a way better job of not destroying the city in the process of saving it."
"Except the school," Boyd added.
"Except the school," Erica agreed. Neither of them looked too broken up about that. She held up Isaac's phone and waved Danny over. "We didn't realize you guys had plans or we would have texted you sooner."
Danny walked to where Erica and Boyd were gathered, Boyd sitting on a set of crumbling stairs that went nowhere, Erica on a chair without legs that she'd probably dragged out of one of the train cars, and Isaac on the floor next to the wall. Isaac was staring straight ahead, his arms folded around his chest with his hands clenched so tightly the skin stretched over his knuckles looked ready to break. He gave no indication that he was even aware of Danny's arrival.
"Fries?" Erica asked, holding a crumpled paper bag with grease spots in Danny's direction.
With a glance around the train station, a shift in the shadows near the main subway car letting him know that Derek was lurking around, Danny sat down on the floor next to Isaac and accepted the offering of food. "How long has he been like this?" he asked quietly. This was the first time he'd seen Isaac frozen and unresponsive since that night in the train depot a few weeks ago and Danny had almost started to believe it was a fluke.
"Do you mean today or in general?" Erica asked, reaching over to steal one of the fries she'd just given to Danny.
"We found him like this about an hour ago," Boyd answered without waiting for Danny's response. "Usually he comes back in a few hours, sometimes sooner. Never longer than a whole night."
Danny was on the verge of asking why again but he already had some suspicions. He'e done some reading about catatonia and none of what he'd found had been comforting, particularly since there was literally no research to be found on the manifestation of mental illness among werewolves. It was difficult to say without having known Isaac for longer, and Danny wasn't a diagnostic clinician by any means, but he was leaning towards Isaac's catatonia as being a faucet of post-traumatic stress disorder. There were definitely other possibilities, but post-traumatic stress made an unfortunate amount of sense given what he knew about Isaac.
"Here, newcomer deals," Erica said.
"What?" Danny asked, turning away from Isaac to find a pack of cards thrust in his face. He accepted the cards and started shuffling. "What are we playing?" he asked, watched the cards neatly slide together against his thigh.
"Go Fish," Boyd said, unperturbed by Danny's raised eyebrows.
Erica gave an exaggerated pout. "Being a werewolf takes all the fun out of poker. Or any game that requires bluffing."
Danny looked at the pair of werewolves and tapped his fingers against the deck of cards. "When we're all 21 we're going to Vegas and making a fortune. Lydia, Jackson, and I taught ourselves card counting last summer. Between your enhanced abilities and our card skills, we could clean out a small casino."
Erica's answering grin was bright and even Boyd looked noticeably intrigued. "Deal. We'll work on our awesome cheating skills later."
"On it," Danny said, quickly dealing five cards to each of them and looking over his own hand. "Boyd, do you have any nines?"
"Go Fish," Boyd answered, his own cards sitting in his lap as he dug into one of the bags of burgers.
They played two rounds of Go Fish before Danny taught them the version of Gin Rummy he played every time he was visiting his cousins - he wasn't stupid enough to suggest they play War and they needed four players for Scum or Hearts. He was mulling over his cards, trying to make two runs and a set appear out of a hand that emphatically did not want to be anything at all, when Erica lightly kicked his leg.
"It's not my turn," Danny said without looking up.
"Yeah, but stop looking at him like that," Erica said, her toes bumping his shin once more.
Danny blinked as he realized he had been watching Isaac, looking for some sign that he could hear them or that he was at all aware of where he was. "Like what?" Danny asked. He was pretty sure he hadn't been looking at Isaac like he would look at a hot guy he'd seen from across the dance floor and he wasn't sure what other type of look she might object to.
"Like you think he's breakable," Erica said, her tone sharper than it had been earlier in the evening. "He's fine."
"He's completely unresponsive!" Danny protested. "How is that fine?"
"He'll come back when he's ready," Boyd said, discarding and resettling the cards in his hand.
"Isaac's just like everyone else in the pack; a little bit crazy and damaged, but still putting one foot in front of the other. That's all there is to it," Erica said, quickly grabbing the card Boyd had just discarded before Danny could protest that he wanted that card. "Boyd and I spent the last month of school being held captive by a pack of Alpha werewolves, Jackson's so dysfunctional he turned into a lizard, Allison can't decide if she's homicidal this week or not, and Lydia hasn't slept a full night since the Winter Formal. None of our parents seem to notice or care that we're out at all hours of the night. Scott still likes to pretend he isn't a werewolf, Stiles doesn't seem to realize that he can't do the things we can do and is going to wind up dead before he gets the message, and Derek can't communicate something to us even to save his own life or maybe especially to save his own life."
A small crash from across the den let them all know that Derek was actually listening to their conversation. Danny felt his lips twitch as Erica smirked and the left side of Boyd's mouth quirked up.
"But my point is, we're all a little screwed up. We wouldn't be here if we weren't," Erica finished, discarding a card. "Now it's your turn."
Danny drew a card from the deck and looked down at his hand. What Erica said made a certain amount of sense, most people didn't up and join a werewolf pack just for fun, but what did that say about him? Danny didn't think he was messed up in any obvious way, not like the ones she had listed, but he was still there in the abandoned train depot playing card games with werewolves. He shoved the card he'd just picked up behind a pair of eights and discarded an ace - if he was going to lose he might as well get rid of the cards that would do him the most damage.
They finished the game about ten minutes later, Boyd neatly tallying their scores while Erica shoved her mess of cards onto the discard pile. Danny stretched his shoulders and jumped slightly when he found Isaac watching him, his eyes blinking and alert. "Hey," Danny said quietly, watching as Isaac found his bearings.
"We gave Danny one of your burgers," Erica said as she pushed one of the remaining bags of food in Isaac's direction. "And some of your fries. It's your turn to deal. We can play Hand and Foot if you want, there's enough of us."
Isaac ran his fingers lightly over the crumpled paper of the bag and peered around the train depot before looking at Danny again. "It's late?" he asked, his voice rough.
Danny checked his phone. "Almost nine, not too late."
"Okay." Isaac nodded uncertainly and pushed the bag to the side, gathering up the cards and shuffling them with the speed and precision that came with being a werewolf. "Hand and Foot? Me and you against those two?"
"Always," Danny said. The smile he gave Isaac wasn't quite forced, and he thought the one he got in return wasn't either.
*****
It was Friday afternoon, they had two weeks of freedom before school started again, and Danny found himself sitting in the food court at the mall while thinking that this was the most normal thing he'd done all summer. Isaac finished the last of his ice cream, licking the plastic red spoon clean with quick darts of his tongue and blushing slightly when he met Danny's eyes.
"What do you want to do now?" Isaac asked as he set to breaking off pieces of the spoon and neatly tossing them into his empty cup.
They had gone to the sporting goods store already, looking at lacrosse gear and Danny muttering about how they should make pads designed to worn when playing with werewolves. Isaac had just shrugged and pointed out that generally the other teams bore the brunt of lacrosse-related werewolf inflicted violence. "Most of the time," he'd added with a sly smile.
"Want to just walk around the mall for a bit?" Danny asked, collecting their trash on a tray and suddenly realizing that in two weeks they'd be back to eating lunch in the cafeteria at school. Usually summers seemed to stretch on forever, but this summer felt like it had passed by in a flash of revelations and violence.
Isaac nodded and they stood in unison. It was easy to set a casual pace, wandering by stores and commenting on what they saw in the windows. Danny noticed that they got a second glance every now and then, even though it wasn't really obvious they were anything more than friends hanging out at the mall, and he noticed that Isaac was just as aware of the glances.
They were standing in front of a window display of video games, pointing out what was supposed to be good and the upcoming releases that were being heavily advertised, when Isaac suddenly said "Boyd and Erica think we're dating."
Danny felt his mouth open and he closed it without saying anything. He and Isaac had been hanging out more and more as the summer went by, they'd ate meals together and gone to the movies, and even went to the club together twice. The second time Danny hadn't realized his ex was there until they were on their way out, and the look Damian had given them had said plenty. This wasn't like the other times Danny had dated, they hadn't even kissed yet and each time their hands brushed they skittered away like they'd just touched a live wire. Danny had spent the last few weeks telling himself that Isaac was just a friend and that Isaac could even be bi without liking him like that.
"Like, not joking either," Isaac continued after a long silence. "Erica asked me to ask you if we wanted to do a double date thing with her and Boyd."
"We could be dating," Danny hedged, feeling his stomach twist a little. Everyone he'd dated before he'd met at the clubs, people who had very obviously been into him. People who'd seen him on the dance floor and liked what they saw. He was pretty sure he'd never seen Isaac look at him like that. "If you wanted to."
Isaac shoved his hands in his pockets. "I was kinda hoping that we were," he said, looking ready to bolt. "Like, we've been going out on dates, right? Either that or I'm just completely stupid."
"You're not," Danny said quickly, his hand on Isaac's wrist before he thought about what he was doing. Isaac's skin was hot beneath his fingers and he blinked and took an unsteady breath. "You're not stupid."
"So, we're dating?" Isaac asked, a note of uncertainty in his voice even as he met Danny's gaze.
"Yeah, we're dating," Danny said, feeling a grin break out on his face in response to the bright smile Isaac was giving him. It felt like the world shifted around them for that moment, they were just two ordinary teenagers in the mall on a Friday with nothing threatening them and the only thing looming was the start of school.
Isaac slipped his hand out of his pocket, twisting it around until his hand was intertwined with Danny's, and they stood for a moment getting used to the surprisingly intimate contact. "Want to walk down to the chocolate shop?" Isaac asked when they were both steady.
There was a lot of things Danny wanted to say, or that he felt he should say. A warning about how things were going to be weird at school if Isaac came out as bi, or how things were going to be weird even if Isaac didn't come out. It was one thing to be out at school, and still another to be out and actively dating another guy at the same school. It wasn't something Danny had done before and he wondered if people were going to be as cool about it when the proof was right in front of them. He wanted to ask if this was going to make things weird with the pack, but he thought he already knew how everyone was going to react. "Sure, let's go," was all Danny wound up saying. He figured the rest would come in time.
They got a few more looks now that they were holding hands, but Isaac seemed unperturbed and Isaac's smile kept Danny's heart soaring for the rest of the day.
*****
Danny's breath was coming in short gasps as he ran through the slowly thinning woods. He could hear Isaac right beside him, a shadow moving in the wane moonlight, but he had long since lost track of anyone else. Despite the fact that half of his summer had essentially been a werewolf training camp and lacrosse took up most of the school year, Danny was winded, his chest and muscles burning as he tried to keep up. Isaac could easily go faster but had refused to leave Danny's side. Danny's ears were still ringing from the gunshots that had been fired off at close range and he pushed away his worry that someone had been hit before Derek had time to yell for them to scatter.
"They're still coming," Isaac whispered after glancing back the way they'd came.
Danny didn't have enough spare energy to answer and simply sucked in another pained breath as they raced out of the trees. They were on the south side of the industrial area, warehouses lined in tidy rows; fortunately on a late Saturday night there was no one to be found. He slowed to a brisk walk and looked around. They couldn't go back into the woods, but standing out in the open wasn't an option either. "There," he said after a moment, pointing to where a loading bay door had been left open at the bottom.
Isaac glanced back at the woods and then nodded and they took off toward the fence that separated the paved road from the edge of the wilderness.
There was barbed wire at the top of the fence and Danny decided that he needed to petition the Mythbusters on ways to climb over it without getting torn to shreds - he wasn't looking forward to testing the theory that simply throwing his jacket over the top would make an effective barrier. A snapping noise drew Danny's attention to the bottom of the fence and he watched as Isaac clawed through the chain link in a straight line.
"Good enough," Danny whispered when there was a flap big enough they could squeeze through, and he let Isaac hold the fence open for him because if worse came to worse Isaac was the one would could actually scaled the fence without being seriously hurt. Danny held his thigh holster down as he made his way through the hole, trying to keep from getting snagged on any sharp edges that would slow them down. Isaac wiggled through the fence moments after Danny was on his feet and they took off running on the asphalt. The brief break had given Danny time to catch his breath a little and he felt like he ought to thank the Coach for making them do suicide runs for practice. Without lacrosse training Danny was pretty sure he'd be back somewhere in the woods hiding and praying not to be found.
They leapt up onto the narrow concrete platform and Danny slid through the opening into the warehouse on his back, Isaac following a second later on his stomach. It was dark in the warehouse, darker than outside where they'd had the moon and the stars, and the air was several degrees cooler. Danny shivered as he stood and stepped away from the entrance, Isaac's hand on his arm only seconds later.
"There's a pallet about a foot to your left," Isaac said.
"Thanks," Danny managed, his heart still pounding in his throat. "What now?"
Isaac was quiet for a moment. "They're still heading this way. We should try to find a way to the roof. Derek says we have the advantage up there."
"Okay," Danny agreed even though he felt like he was going to be pretty much useless just about anywhere they wound up. He let Isaac guide him through the dark maze of walls and pallets, trying to walk as quickly as he dared. He was slowing them down, just like he had been in the woods, and he was about to suggest that Isaac leave him somewhere to go find the way up and then come back for him when they heard the rattle of the loading bay door being forced open.
Isaac kept walking, his hand tight around Danny's arm, their footsteps now slow and silent. Danny felt like the Hunters could probably hear his heartbeat thundering away even as he tried to keep control of his breathing. A thud and a curse came from somewhere to their left, far closer than Danny expected, and Isaac's grip briefly grew tighter. Isaac gave a barely audible whimper and stopped walking, his hand falling away from Danny's arm.
Danny reached out, finding were Isaac had dropped to the ground and following him down. He couldn't tell if they were just hiding or if Isaac had been shot with a drugged dart or something worse. Isaac was trembling as Danny grabbed his hands as he crouched on the cold concrete floor.
"He's coming," Isaac whispered, his eyes glowing bright for just a second, only inches away from Danny's face. The trembling stopped abruptly as Isaac's eyes went dark and Danny realized that he was shaking too.
Danny bit down on his lip to prevent himself from trying to talk with Isaac; if by some miracle the Hunters hadn't figured out where they were he didn't want to give away their position. He tried to remember how many shots he'd fired already and if he actually had any ammo left. Slowly he edged one of his hands toward his holster but a bright puddle of light was suddenly surrounding them. Danny made his hands flat and held them away from his sides and wondered whether it was going to be easier to be shot in the back when he couldn't see the gun being fired.
When no weapons were immediately fired Danny opened his eyes, not remembering when he had even closed them. Isaac was as still and unresponsive as Danny had feared when he'd felt Isaac stop shaking. No one was moving; not Danny, not the Hunter, and certainly not Isaac. Danny weighed his options and realized that he was the only one that could keep them alive in the next few minutes and wondered when the hell his life had turned into this.
"I'm going to turn around, slowly. I'm not a werewolf. The only weapon I have is in the holster at my right side," Danny said. There was no way he was going to be quick enough to shoot a Hunter and there was no one coming to the rescue. Slowly, waiting for the sound of a trigger being pressed, Danny turned so that he had his back to Isaac. He tried to position his body in front of Isaac as much as possible, not that he would actually be able to stop a bullet from tearing through both of them, but he hated the idea of an outsider seeing Isaac this vulnerable.
The Hunter stared down at them, his rifle steady and his face grim. "You're not a werewolf?" he asked, still aiming directly at Danny's chest.
"Not a werewolf," Danny agreed, slowly lifting one of his arms so that his sleeve could fall back and reveal the bleeding scrape he'd gotten stumbling over a tree root as they'd fled.
"Fine, what about him?" the Hunter asked, jerking his head at Isaac.
"He hasn't hurt anyone," Danny said. He remembered Scott and Derek arguing about something they called The Code, how Hunters were only supposed to go after werewolves who were attacking people. Not that the group of Hunters that had been stalking them all summer seemed to care that Derek's pack was pretty harmless, all things considered. "The pack hasn't killed anyone. We stopped the Alpha Pack, that's all."
The Hunter seemed unmoved by this declaration and Danny let his hands drop down to his sides. He wondered what his parents would think when their bodies were found in some warehouse, or if the Hunters would hide the bodies so that no one knew what happened to them. His parents would probably even believe that Danny had ran away, maybe that he and Isaac ran away together if they both went missing and someone made the connection to seeing them together at the mall last weekend. Maybe Jackson or Stiles would be able to tell his parents the truth, tell them what really happened to Danny, if they were even still alive. Danny reached back and wrapped his hand around Isaac's clenched fingers, hoping that Isaac could at least feel him and would know who he was. He wanted to believe that Isaac knew they weren't dying alone.
"What's wrong with him?" the Hunter asked, his stance shifting slightly.
Danny looked up from where he'd been staring at the gun, looking at the Hunter's face and seeing something beyond hate in the man's eyes. "Nothing. Nothing is wrong with him," Danny found himself saying, his lips tightening in anger.
He had spent most of his years as a teenager realizing and trying to accept that some people would hate him, just for being what he was. That people had killed because of that hatred and that when his mom looked him in the eyes and told him to be careful out there, she was afraid that someone would hurt or kill her child because he was gay. Being a werewolf wasn't the same as being gay, of course it wasn't, but Danny had seen that same sneer of hatred the handful of times they'd had a semi-peaceful confrontation with the Hunters as he had when he was fourteen and dared to hold hands with a boy while waiting in line for a movie.
"There's nothing wrong with us," Danny insisted, holding his chin high now and meeting the Hunter's gaze directly. If they were going to die, Danny wanted the Hunter to see that he wasn't putting down mindless animals bent on murder and destruction.
The Hunter stared for a long moment and heaved a sigh. "How old are you?" he asked, his gun tilting ever so slightly lower.
"Sixteen," Danny said quickly. "We're sixteen years old. We're starting our junior year of high school next week."
The barrel of the Hunter's rifle dropped down another inch. He looked away from them for a long moment, long enough that Danny's hand itched to reach for his holster - after thinking about it he was reasonably sure he had at least another two bullets - but the Hunter turned back and stared at them. "Next time I wouldn't be able to walk away," he said before he turned and left in two long strides.
Danny blinked in the sudden darkness and felt his heart jump when he heard a voice ask "Dad, find anything?" The voice was young, probably not yet out of high school, and Danny wondered what would have happened if it had been the son who had found them instead of the father.
"Warehouse is clear," the Hunter said. "We'll regroup, see if the others caught anyone."
Their footsteps faded but Danny stayed exactly where he was until his muscles were shaking from the strain of half kneeling. He kept his movements as slow and quiet as possible as he turned to face Isaac and sat on the cold concrete. Since he already had his hand over Isaac's for a long time he edged closer so that their knees were bumping together; he remembered Derek's warning that Isaac could lash out if he was touched when he was frozen like this, but so far they seemed to be doing alright. "We're okay," Danny whispered, and the words were as much for himself as they were for Isaac.
He didn't know how much time had passed when he felt his phone vibrate against his thigh, but when he pulled his phone from his pocket he saw that it was almost five in the morning on Sunday. It was an unknown number and Danny pressed the answer button and held it up to his ear without saying anything. He was relatively certain he didn't used to be this paranoid, but since he'd spent the last few hours coming up with a way to send his parents a message in the event of his death he figured that a little paranoia was probably justified.
"Danny?" someone asked, and it took him a moment to identify Erica's voice.
"We're here," Danny said, his voice as raw as he felt.
"Thank god," she said, and she actually sounded relieved. "Are you with Isaac?"
"Yeah, in a warehouse. We're okay, but Isaac might need a hand to get out of here," Danny said, listening as Erica announced to whoever she was with that he and Isaac were now accounted for.
"We'll be there in five," she said, hanging up before Danny could ask if they even knew where they were. It would have been a moot point, Danny couldn't have told her which warehouse they were hiding in, but he wouldn't have objected to staying on the phone with her for another minute or two, at least long enough to ask if everyone else was alright. After watching two minutes pass Danny pocketed his phone and hoped that it was actually as easy to find people as Jackson made it sound when he bitched about Derek making them train to use their senses.
"About time," Danny said when he saw a trio of glowing eyes approaching on silent feet. He wished he sounded less shaken and more irritated, but he accepted Jackson's hand up.
"Whatever," Jackson said, but his hand stayed on Danny's much longer than it was necessary to make sure Danny was steady on his feet.
A few minutes later they were stepping out into the very early light of dawn and Danny had a strange moment where he realized that for a few minutes he honestly hadn't expected to see this day begin.
*****
Back at the train depot Danny sat with Stiles at their makeshift workbench as they cleaned and reloaded their weapons. Scott was laid out on a pile of blankets, looking pained even in his sleep. His clothes were splattered with blood, as were Stiles and Allison's, and Allison looked particularly unhappy as she stared down at the crossbow on her lap. Jackson and Lydia had already left, Lydia explaining that she was supposed to meet her dad for breakfast in an hour and suggesting that she'd rather go another round with the Hunters instead. Erica was sitting with Boyd, quiet in the aftermath of everyone explaining what had happened after the pack had split up. No one was saying it, but Danny knew that it was a small miracle they all made it back alive.
Danny finished with his Smith and Wesson and holstered it before he stepped into the subway car, half aware of Derek watching from where he was sitting next to Scott. Boyd had carried Isaac onto the mattress inside and Danny had found himself looking up every few seconds to see if Isaac had surfaced yet. He sat on the edge of the mattress and hesitated for only a moment before he smoothed his hand through Isaac's hair. There were a few twigs and leaves tangled in Isaac's curls, just like after training when Isaac had been rolling around on the forest floor with one of the other werewolves. Danny gently picked out the foliage until Isaac's hair was clean and then wrapped his hand around Isaac's and waited.
He knew he should go home, his parents were probably going to be upset that Danny had been out all night - not that this was the first or the last time that had happened - but he didn't want to leave until he'd seen that Isaac was okay. Late one night, a few weeks ago, Danny had fallen asleep wondering if the time Isaac spent frozen was simply lost, like blinking and having it suddenly be a few hours later. He hadn't asked, he still wasn't sure how to broach the topic with Isaac, but Danny knew that if the last thing he remembered was a Hunter coming after them and then he woke up and Isaac was gone, he'd be scared that Isaac was dead or had been taken. He knew he wouldn't be able to believe that Isaac was okay until he'd seen him for himself, just like he knew he'd spend all day worrying that Isaac was still frozen in time if he left before Isaac was back.
"Are you okay?"
Danny startled, his heart racing, and he blinked a few times until he was certain Isaac was actually watching him and this wasn't confusion following sleep deprivation. "Yeah, I'm okay," he said, squeezing Isaac's hand. "Are you?"
"Is everyone else okay?" Isaac asked, looking out the hazy window of the subway car. "I smell blood."
"Scott had some arrow problems, but he's healing. Everyone else was just scraped and bruised," Danny said, looking down when Isaac twisted his hand around so that they were actually holding hands. "Isaac, are you okay?"
Isaac closed his eyes and for a brief moment Danny thought he'd lost him again. "Not exactly," Isaac said as he let his eyes fall back open, "but given that I didn't expect to be alive right now, I'll take what I can get."
Danny nodded and held Isaac's gaze, preparing himself to ask about the times when Isaac disappeared.
"Can I kiss you?" Isaac asked seconds before Danny could form his question.
"Do you want to kiss me?" Danny asked, letting himself be diverted even though he suspected that Isaac knew exactly what he was doing.
"We're alive when we probably should be dead, I think that calls for a kiss," Isaac said, his eyebrows climbing slightly.
"Possibly," Danny allowed. "But do you want to kiss me?"
Isaac's mouth twitched. "Only for about a year now," he said, bravado mixing with uncertainty.
Danny put his hand on Isaac's shoulder and leaned in. Their lips brushed together once before they made solid contact and Danny shivered ever so slightly when he felt Isaac's fingertips trace down the side of his jaw while they kissed. "Isaac," Danny whispered against Isaac's lips, the name immediately stolen by Isaac's mouth.
When they broke apart an eternity later Danny felt beyond overwhelmed and took a moment to acknowledge that his body was probably a mess of hormones and stress chemicals right now.
"Yeah, now I'm doing okay," Isaac said, his lips pressed together as he struggled to hide a smile.
Danny reached over and traced his fingertip over Isaac's mouth, watching his smile break free with just a little encouragement, and he wondered if the Hunter who had walked away knew what he had given them. "We're okay," Danny agreed, his hand finding Isaac's again as they sat and breathed in the sounds and scents of their new day.
With a sigh Danny checked his phone for the fifth time in less than ten minutes and looked around the street again. He and Isaac had made plans to meet at six at the diner on main and first street, with the intent that they'd find something to do after they ate. Danny had been wavering between suggesting they see a movie, where they could sit close for a few hours but not really talk, or maybe just hanging out for a while and then going to a club. He wasn't really sure if Isaac was the kind of guy that liked going to clubs, they'd never discussed it, but he supposed it was a moot point if Isaac wasn't going to show up at all.
He checked his phone again and watched as the time flipped over to 6:15 with still no messages, and after a moment of internal debate about whether or not he was being stupid about this, he typed out a text to Isaac asking if he was going to be late. Hitting send before he could stop himself, Danny shoved his phone in his pocket and tried not to worry too much. One of the reasons Damian had cited when he and Danny had broken up was that Danny was supposedly neurotic and controlling. Danny didn't think that was true, he just didn't like being late for things, but the words still came back to him at the most inopportune moments. "There's probably just some werewolf stuff going down," he told himself, and then started worrying for an entirely different reason.
His guns were stowed in the trunk of the car, carefully tucked in with the spare tire so if he got pulled over speeding to the latest crisis it wouldn't be immediately obvious he was carrying unlicensed weapons. Danny had some serious envy over the trunk of the Winchester's Impala and on multiple occasions had considered getting together with Lydia, Stiles, and Boyd to figure out if they could engineer something similar for their own cars. Before Danny could work himself into enough of a panic that he went back to his car to arm himself, his phone buzzed with a new message.
'Com 2 teh den', the text read, and Danny jogged down the block to his car immediately. The message had come from Isaac's phone, but that wasn't Isaac's texting style at all. Isaac preferred to spell out words and use punctuation and add odd little smilies at the end of his messages. Sometimes Danny couldn't figure out what the smilies were supposed to be representing but they always made him smile anyway. Traffic eased up as soon as he hit the industrial area of the town, the main drag mostly vacant buildings of businesses that had gone under a few years back. The train depot had been a functional for maybe ten years before the trains stopped coming and local government gave up and let everyone use the interstate to get into the city.
Danny parked without any consideration for the parking spaces that were now just faded and broken lines and took an extra minute to arm himself before he hurried down into the train depot, wondering for the dozenth time what had possessed Derek to think that this was an awesome place to hang out for long periods of time. Sure, it kind of had a bat cave feel to it, but Danny was having some serious reconsiderations on whether or not the bat cave would actually be a comfortable place to hang out and plan for the next disaster. "Beacon Hills is not Gotham City," Danny told himself as he descended the last few steps and looked around for the latest emergency.
"Damn straight," Erica said, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she turned to raise her eyebrows in Danny's direction. "We do a way better job of not destroying the city in the process of saving it."
"Except the school," Boyd added.
"Except the school," Erica agreed. Neither of them looked too broken up about that. She held up Isaac's phone and waved Danny over. "We didn't realize you guys had plans or we would have texted you sooner."
Danny walked to where Erica and Boyd were gathered, Boyd sitting on a set of crumbling stairs that went nowhere, Erica on a chair without legs that she'd probably dragged out of one of the train cars, and Isaac on the floor next to the wall. Isaac was staring straight ahead, his arms folded around his chest with his hands clenched so tightly the skin stretched over his knuckles looked ready to break. He gave no indication that he was even aware of Danny's arrival.
"Fries?" Erica asked, holding a crumpled paper bag with grease spots in Danny's direction.
With a glance around the train station, a shift in the shadows near the main subway car letting him know that Derek was lurking around, Danny sat down on the floor next to Isaac and accepted the offering of food. "How long has he been like this?" he asked quietly. This was the first time he'd seen Isaac frozen and unresponsive since that night in the train depot a few weeks ago and Danny had almost started to believe it was a fluke.
"Do you mean today or in general?" Erica asked, reaching over to steal one of the fries she'd just given to Danny.
"We found him like this about an hour ago," Boyd answered without waiting for Danny's response. "Usually he comes back in a few hours, sometimes sooner. Never longer than a whole night."
Danny was on the verge of asking why again but he already had some suspicions. He'e done some reading about catatonia and none of what he'd found had been comforting, particularly since there was literally no research to be found on the manifestation of mental illness among werewolves. It was difficult to say without having known Isaac for longer, and Danny wasn't a diagnostic clinician by any means, but he was leaning towards Isaac's catatonia as being a faucet of post-traumatic stress disorder. There were definitely other possibilities, but post-traumatic stress made an unfortunate amount of sense given what he knew about Isaac.
"Here, newcomer deals," Erica said.
"What?" Danny asked, turning away from Isaac to find a pack of cards thrust in his face. He accepted the cards and started shuffling. "What are we playing?" he asked, watched the cards neatly slide together against his thigh.
"Go Fish," Boyd said, unperturbed by Danny's raised eyebrows.
Erica gave an exaggerated pout. "Being a werewolf takes all the fun out of poker. Or any game that requires bluffing."
Danny looked at the pair of werewolves and tapped his fingers against the deck of cards. "When we're all 21 we're going to Vegas and making a fortune. Lydia, Jackson, and I taught ourselves card counting last summer. Between your enhanced abilities and our card skills, we could clean out a small casino."
Erica's answering grin was bright and even Boyd looked noticeably intrigued. "Deal. We'll work on our awesome cheating skills later."
"On it," Danny said, quickly dealing five cards to each of them and looking over his own hand. "Boyd, do you have any nines?"
"Go Fish," Boyd answered, his own cards sitting in his lap as he dug into one of the bags of burgers.
They played two rounds of Go Fish before Danny taught them the version of Gin Rummy he played every time he was visiting his cousins - he wasn't stupid enough to suggest they play War and they needed four players for Scum or Hearts. He was mulling over his cards, trying to make two runs and a set appear out of a hand that emphatically did not want to be anything at all, when Erica lightly kicked his leg.
"It's not my turn," Danny said without looking up.
"Yeah, but stop looking at him like that," Erica said, her toes bumping his shin once more.
Danny blinked as he realized he had been watching Isaac, looking for some sign that he could hear them or that he was at all aware of where he was. "Like what?" Danny asked. He was pretty sure he hadn't been looking at Isaac like he would look at a hot guy he'd seen from across the dance floor and he wasn't sure what other type of look she might object to.
"Like you think he's breakable," Erica said, her tone sharper than it had been earlier in the evening. "He's fine."
"He's completely unresponsive!" Danny protested. "How is that fine?"
"He'll come back when he's ready," Boyd said, discarding and resettling the cards in his hand.
"Isaac's just like everyone else in the pack; a little bit crazy and damaged, but still putting one foot in front of the other. That's all there is to it," Erica said, quickly grabbing the card Boyd had just discarded before Danny could protest that he wanted that card. "Boyd and I spent the last month of school being held captive by a pack of Alpha werewolves, Jackson's so dysfunctional he turned into a lizard, Allison can't decide if she's homicidal this week or not, and Lydia hasn't slept a full night since the Winter Formal. None of our parents seem to notice or care that we're out at all hours of the night. Scott still likes to pretend he isn't a werewolf, Stiles doesn't seem to realize that he can't do the things we can do and is going to wind up dead before he gets the message, and Derek can't communicate something to us even to save his own life or maybe especially to save his own life."
A small crash from across the den let them all know that Derek was actually listening to their conversation. Danny felt his lips twitch as Erica smirked and the left side of Boyd's mouth quirked up.
"But my point is, we're all a little screwed up. We wouldn't be here if we weren't," Erica finished, discarding a card. "Now it's your turn."
Danny drew a card from the deck and looked down at his hand. What Erica said made a certain amount of sense, most people didn't up and join a werewolf pack just for fun, but what did that say about him? Danny didn't think he was messed up in any obvious way, not like the ones she had listed, but he was still there in the abandoned train depot playing card games with werewolves. He shoved the card he'd just picked up behind a pair of eights and discarded an ace - if he was going to lose he might as well get rid of the cards that would do him the most damage.
They finished the game about ten minutes later, Boyd neatly tallying their scores while Erica shoved her mess of cards onto the discard pile. Danny stretched his shoulders and jumped slightly when he found Isaac watching him, his eyes blinking and alert. "Hey," Danny said quietly, watching as Isaac found his bearings.
"We gave Danny one of your burgers," Erica said as she pushed one of the remaining bags of food in Isaac's direction. "And some of your fries. It's your turn to deal. We can play Hand and Foot if you want, there's enough of us."
Isaac ran his fingers lightly over the crumpled paper of the bag and peered around the train depot before looking at Danny again. "It's late?" he asked, his voice rough.
Danny checked his phone. "Almost nine, not too late."
"Okay." Isaac nodded uncertainly and pushed the bag to the side, gathering up the cards and shuffling them with the speed and precision that came with being a werewolf. "Hand and Foot? Me and you against those two?"
"Always," Danny said. The smile he gave Isaac wasn't quite forced, and he thought the one he got in return wasn't either.
*****
It was Friday afternoon, they had two weeks of freedom before school started again, and Danny found himself sitting in the food court at the mall while thinking that this was the most normal thing he'd done all summer. Isaac finished the last of his ice cream, licking the plastic red spoon clean with quick darts of his tongue and blushing slightly when he met Danny's eyes.
"What do you want to do now?" Isaac asked as he set to breaking off pieces of the spoon and neatly tossing them into his empty cup.
They had gone to the sporting goods store already, looking at lacrosse gear and Danny muttering about how they should make pads designed to worn when playing with werewolves. Isaac had just shrugged and pointed out that generally the other teams bore the brunt of lacrosse-related werewolf inflicted violence. "Most of the time," he'd added with a sly smile.
"Want to just walk around the mall for a bit?" Danny asked, collecting their trash on a tray and suddenly realizing that in two weeks they'd be back to eating lunch in the cafeteria at school. Usually summers seemed to stretch on forever, but this summer felt like it had passed by in a flash of revelations and violence.
Isaac nodded and they stood in unison. It was easy to set a casual pace, wandering by stores and commenting on what they saw in the windows. Danny noticed that they got a second glance every now and then, even though it wasn't really obvious they were anything more than friends hanging out at the mall, and he noticed that Isaac was just as aware of the glances.
They were standing in front of a window display of video games, pointing out what was supposed to be good and the upcoming releases that were being heavily advertised, when Isaac suddenly said "Boyd and Erica think we're dating."
Danny felt his mouth open and he closed it without saying anything. He and Isaac had been hanging out more and more as the summer went by, they'd ate meals together and gone to the movies, and even went to the club together twice. The second time Danny hadn't realized his ex was there until they were on their way out, and the look Damian had given them had said plenty. This wasn't like the other times Danny had dated, they hadn't even kissed yet and each time their hands brushed they skittered away like they'd just touched a live wire. Danny had spent the last few weeks telling himself that Isaac was just a friend and that Isaac could even be bi without liking him like that.
"Like, not joking either," Isaac continued after a long silence. "Erica asked me to ask you if we wanted to do a double date thing with her and Boyd."
"We could be dating," Danny hedged, feeling his stomach twist a little. Everyone he'd dated before he'd met at the clubs, people who had very obviously been into him. People who'd seen him on the dance floor and liked what they saw. He was pretty sure he'd never seen Isaac look at him like that. "If you wanted to."
Isaac shoved his hands in his pockets. "I was kinda hoping that we were," he said, looking ready to bolt. "Like, we've been going out on dates, right? Either that or I'm just completely stupid."
"You're not," Danny said quickly, his hand on Isaac's wrist before he thought about what he was doing. Isaac's skin was hot beneath his fingers and he blinked and took an unsteady breath. "You're not stupid."
"So, we're dating?" Isaac asked, a note of uncertainty in his voice even as he met Danny's gaze.
"Yeah, we're dating," Danny said, feeling a grin break out on his face in response to the bright smile Isaac was giving him. It felt like the world shifted around them for that moment, they were just two ordinary teenagers in the mall on a Friday with nothing threatening them and the only thing looming was the start of school.
Isaac slipped his hand out of his pocket, twisting it around until his hand was intertwined with Danny's, and they stood for a moment getting used to the surprisingly intimate contact. "Want to walk down to the chocolate shop?" Isaac asked when they were both steady.
There was a lot of things Danny wanted to say, or that he felt he should say. A warning about how things were going to be weird at school if Isaac came out as bi, or how things were going to be weird even if Isaac didn't come out. It was one thing to be out at school, and still another to be out and actively dating another guy at the same school. It wasn't something Danny had done before and he wondered if people were going to be as cool about it when the proof was right in front of them. He wanted to ask if this was going to make things weird with the pack, but he thought he already knew how everyone was going to react. "Sure, let's go," was all Danny wound up saying. He figured the rest would come in time.
They got a few more looks now that they were holding hands, but Isaac seemed unperturbed and Isaac's smile kept Danny's heart soaring for the rest of the day.
*****
Danny's breath was coming in short gasps as he ran through the slowly thinning woods. He could hear Isaac right beside him, a shadow moving in the wane moonlight, but he had long since lost track of anyone else. Despite the fact that half of his summer had essentially been a werewolf training camp and lacrosse took up most of the school year, Danny was winded, his chest and muscles burning as he tried to keep up. Isaac could easily go faster but had refused to leave Danny's side. Danny's ears were still ringing from the gunshots that had been fired off at close range and he pushed away his worry that someone had been hit before Derek had time to yell for them to scatter.
"They're still coming," Isaac whispered after glancing back the way they'd came.
Danny didn't have enough spare energy to answer and simply sucked in another pained breath as they raced out of the trees. They were on the south side of the industrial area, warehouses lined in tidy rows; fortunately on a late Saturday night there was no one to be found. He slowed to a brisk walk and looked around. They couldn't go back into the woods, but standing out in the open wasn't an option either. "There," he said after a moment, pointing to where a loading bay door had been left open at the bottom.
Isaac glanced back at the woods and then nodded and they took off toward the fence that separated the paved road from the edge of the wilderness.
There was barbed wire at the top of the fence and Danny decided that he needed to petition the Mythbusters on ways to climb over it without getting torn to shreds - he wasn't looking forward to testing the theory that simply throwing his jacket over the top would make an effective barrier. A snapping noise drew Danny's attention to the bottom of the fence and he watched as Isaac clawed through the chain link in a straight line.
"Good enough," Danny whispered when there was a flap big enough they could squeeze through, and he let Isaac hold the fence open for him because if worse came to worse Isaac was the one would could actually scaled the fence without being seriously hurt. Danny held his thigh holster down as he made his way through the hole, trying to keep from getting snagged on any sharp edges that would slow them down. Isaac wiggled through the fence moments after Danny was on his feet and they took off running on the asphalt. The brief break had given Danny time to catch his breath a little and he felt like he ought to thank the Coach for making them do suicide runs for practice. Without lacrosse training Danny was pretty sure he'd be back somewhere in the woods hiding and praying not to be found.
They leapt up onto the narrow concrete platform and Danny slid through the opening into the warehouse on his back, Isaac following a second later on his stomach. It was dark in the warehouse, darker than outside where they'd had the moon and the stars, and the air was several degrees cooler. Danny shivered as he stood and stepped away from the entrance, Isaac's hand on his arm only seconds later.
"There's a pallet about a foot to your left," Isaac said.
"Thanks," Danny managed, his heart still pounding in his throat. "What now?"
Isaac was quiet for a moment. "They're still heading this way. We should try to find a way to the roof. Derek says we have the advantage up there."
"Okay," Danny agreed even though he felt like he was going to be pretty much useless just about anywhere they wound up. He let Isaac guide him through the dark maze of walls and pallets, trying to walk as quickly as he dared. He was slowing them down, just like he had been in the woods, and he was about to suggest that Isaac leave him somewhere to go find the way up and then come back for him when they heard the rattle of the loading bay door being forced open.
Isaac kept walking, his hand tight around Danny's arm, their footsteps now slow and silent. Danny felt like the Hunters could probably hear his heartbeat thundering away even as he tried to keep control of his breathing. A thud and a curse came from somewhere to their left, far closer than Danny expected, and Isaac's grip briefly grew tighter. Isaac gave a barely audible whimper and stopped walking, his hand falling away from Danny's arm.
Danny reached out, finding were Isaac had dropped to the ground and following him down. He couldn't tell if they were just hiding or if Isaac had been shot with a drugged dart or something worse. Isaac was trembling as Danny grabbed his hands as he crouched on the cold concrete floor.
"He's coming," Isaac whispered, his eyes glowing bright for just a second, only inches away from Danny's face. The trembling stopped abruptly as Isaac's eyes went dark and Danny realized that he was shaking too.
Danny bit down on his lip to prevent himself from trying to talk with Isaac; if by some miracle the Hunters hadn't figured out where they were he didn't want to give away their position. He tried to remember how many shots he'd fired already and if he actually had any ammo left. Slowly he edged one of his hands toward his holster but a bright puddle of light was suddenly surrounding them. Danny made his hands flat and held them away from his sides and wondered whether it was going to be easier to be shot in the back when he couldn't see the gun being fired.
When no weapons were immediately fired Danny opened his eyes, not remembering when he had even closed them. Isaac was as still and unresponsive as Danny had feared when he'd felt Isaac stop shaking. No one was moving; not Danny, not the Hunter, and certainly not Isaac. Danny weighed his options and realized that he was the only one that could keep them alive in the next few minutes and wondered when the hell his life had turned into this.
"I'm going to turn around, slowly. I'm not a werewolf. The only weapon I have is in the holster at my right side," Danny said. There was no way he was going to be quick enough to shoot a Hunter and there was no one coming to the rescue. Slowly, waiting for the sound of a trigger being pressed, Danny turned so that he had his back to Isaac. He tried to position his body in front of Isaac as much as possible, not that he would actually be able to stop a bullet from tearing through both of them, but he hated the idea of an outsider seeing Isaac this vulnerable.
The Hunter stared down at them, his rifle steady and his face grim. "You're not a werewolf?" he asked, still aiming directly at Danny's chest.
"Not a werewolf," Danny agreed, slowly lifting one of his arms so that his sleeve could fall back and reveal the bleeding scrape he'd gotten stumbling over a tree root as they'd fled.
"Fine, what about him?" the Hunter asked, jerking his head at Isaac.
"He hasn't hurt anyone," Danny said. He remembered Scott and Derek arguing about something they called The Code, how Hunters were only supposed to go after werewolves who were attacking people. Not that the group of Hunters that had been stalking them all summer seemed to care that Derek's pack was pretty harmless, all things considered. "The pack hasn't killed anyone. We stopped the Alpha Pack, that's all."
The Hunter seemed unmoved by this declaration and Danny let his hands drop down to his sides. He wondered what his parents would think when their bodies were found in some warehouse, or if the Hunters would hide the bodies so that no one knew what happened to them. His parents would probably even believe that Danny had ran away, maybe that he and Isaac ran away together if they both went missing and someone made the connection to seeing them together at the mall last weekend. Maybe Jackson or Stiles would be able to tell his parents the truth, tell them what really happened to Danny, if they were even still alive. Danny reached back and wrapped his hand around Isaac's clenched fingers, hoping that Isaac could at least feel him and would know who he was. He wanted to believe that Isaac knew they weren't dying alone.
"What's wrong with him?" the Hunter asked, his stance shifting slightly.
Danny looked up from where he'd been staring at the gun, looking at the Hunter's face and seeing something beyond hate in the man's eyes. "Nothing. Nothing is wrong with him," Danny found himself saying, his lips tightening in anger.
He had spent most of his years as a teenager realizing and trying to accept that some people would hate him, just for being what he was. That people had killed because of that hatred and that when his mom looked him in the eyes and told him to be careful out there, she was afraid that someone would hurt or kill her child because he was gay. Being a werewolf wasn't the same as being gay, of course it wasn't, but Danny had seen that same sneer of hatred the handful of times they'd had a semi-peaceful confrontation with the Hunters as he had when he was fourteen and dared to hold hands with a boy while waiting in line for a movie.
"There's nothing wrong with us," Danny insisted, holding his chin high now and meeting the Hunter's gaze directly. If they were going to die, Danny wanted the Hunter to see that he wasn't putting down mindless animals bent on murder and destruction.
The Hunter stared for a long moment and heaved a sigh. "How old are you?" he asked, his gun tilting ever so slightly lower.
"Sixteen," Danny said quickly. "We're sixteen years old. We're starting our junior year of high school next week."
The barrel of the Hunter's rifle dropped down another inch. He looked away from them for a long moment, long enough that Danny's hand itched to reach for his holster - after thinking about it he was reasonably sure he had at least another two bullets - but the Hunter turned back and stared at them. "Next time I wouldn't be able to walk away," he said before he turned and left in two long strides.
Danny blinked in the sudden darkness and felt his heart jump when he heard a voice ask "Dad, find anything?" The voice was young, probably not yet out of high school, and Danny wondered what would have happened if it had been the son who had found them instead of the father.
"Warehouse is clear," the Hunter said. "We'll regroup, see if the others caught anyone."
Their footsteps faded but Danny stayed exactly where he was until his muscles were shaking from the strain of half kneeling. He kept his movements as slow and quiet as possible as he turned to face Isaac and sat on the cold concrete. Since he already had his hand over Isaac's for a long time he edged closer so that their knees were bumping together; he remembered Derek's warning that Isaac could lash out if he was touched when he was frozen like this, but so far they seemed to be doing alright. "We're okay," Danny whispered, and the words were as much for himself as they were for Isaac.
He didn't know how much time had passed when he felt his phone vibrate against his thigh, but when he pulled his phone from his pocket he saw that it was almost five in the morning on Sunday. It was an unknown number and Danny pressed the answer button and held it up to his ear without saying anything. He was relatively certain he didn't used to be this paranoid, but since he'd spent the last few hours coming up with a way to send his parents a message in the event of his death he figured that a little paranoia was probably justified.
"Danny?" someone asked, and it took him a moment to identify Erica's voice.
"We're here," Danny said, his voice as raw as he felt.
"Thank god," she said, and she actually sounded relieved. "Are you with Isaac?"
"Yeah, in a warehouse. We're okay, but Isaac might need a hand to get out of here," Danny said, listening as Erica announced to whoever she was with that he and Isaac were now accounted for.
"We'll be there in five," she said, hanging up before Danny could ask if they even knew where they were. It would have been a moot point, Danny couldn't have told her which warehouse they were hiding in, but he wouldn't have objected to staying on the phone with her for another minute or two, at least long enough to ask if everyone else was alright. After watching two minutes pass Danny pocketed his phone and hoped that it was actually as easy to find people as Jackson made it sound when he bitched about Derek making them train to use their senses.
"About time," Danny said when he saw a trio of glowing eyes approaching on silent feet. He wished he sounded less shaken and more irritated, but he accepted Jackson's hand up.
"Whatever," Jackson said, but his hand stayed on Danny's much longer than it was necessary to make sure Danny was steady on his feet.
A few minutes later they were stepping out into the very early light of dawn and Danny had a strange moment where he realized that for a few minutes he honestly hadn't expected to see this day begin.
*****
Back at the train depot Danny sat with Stiles at their makeshift workbench as they cleaned and reloaded their weapons. Scott was laid out on a pile of blankets, looking pained even in his sleep. His clothes were splattered with blood, as were Stiles and Allison's, and Allison looked particularly unhappy as she stared down at the crossbow on her lap. Jackson and Lydia had already left, Lydia explaining that she was supposed to meet her dad for breakfast in an hour and suggesting that she'd rather go another round with the Hunters instead. Erica was sitting with Boyd, quiet in the aftermath of everyone explaining what had happened after the pack had split up. No one was saying it, but Danny knew that it was a small miracle they all made it back alive.
Danny finished with his Smith and Wesson and holstered it before he stepped into the subway car, half aware of Derek watching from where he was sitting next to Scott. Boyd had carried Isaac onto the mattress inside and Danny had found himself looking up every few seconds to see if Isaac had surfaced yet. He sat on the edge of the mattress and hesitated for only a moment before he smoothed his hand through Isaac's hair. There were a few twigs and leaves tangled in Isaac's curls, just like after training when Isaac had been rolling around on the forest floor with one of the other werewolves. Danny gently picked out the foliage until Isaac's hair was clean and then wrapped his hand around Isaac's and waited.
He knew he should go home, his parents were probably going to be upset that Danny had been out all night - not that this was the first or the last time that had happened - but he didn't want to leave until he'd seen that Isaac was okay. Late one night, a few weeks ago, Danny had fallen asleep wondering if the time Isaac spent frozen was simply lost, like blinking and having it suddenly be a few hours later. He hadn't asked, he still wasn't sure how to broach the topic with Isaac, but Danny knew that if the last thing he remembered was a Hunter coming after them and then he woke up and Isaac was gone, he'd be scared that Isaac was dead or had been taken. He knew he wouldn't be able to believe that Isaac was okay until he'd seen him for himself, just like he knew he'd spend all day worrying that Isaac was still frozen in time if he left before Isaac was back.
"Are you okay?"
Danny startled, his heart racing, and he blinked a few times until he was certain Isaac was actually watching him and this wasn't confusion following sleep deprivation. "Yeah, I'm okay," he said, squeezing Isaac's hand. "Are you?"
"Is everyone else okay?" Isaac asked, looking out the hazy window of the subway car. "I smell blood."
"Scott had some arrow problems, but he's healing. Everyone else was just scraped and bruised," Danny said, looking down when Isaac twisted his hand around so that they were actually holding hands. "Isaac, are you okay?"
Isaac closed his eyes and for a brief moment Danny thought he'd lost him again. "Not exactly," Isaac said as he let his eyes fall back open, "but given that I didn't expect to be alive right now, I'll take what I can get."
Danny nodded and held Isaac's gaze, preparing himself to ask about the times when Isaac disappeared.
"Can I kiss you?" Isaac asked seconds before Danny could form his question.
"Do you want to kiss me?" Danny asked, letting himself be diverted even though he suspected that Isaac knew exactly what he was doing.
"We're alive when we probably should be dead, I think that calls for a kiss," Isaac said, his eyebrows climbing slightly.
"Possibly," Danny allowed. "But do you want to kiss me?"
Isaac's mouth twitched. "Only for about a year now," he said, bravado mixing with uncertainty.
Danny put his hand on Isaac's shoulder and leaned in. Their lips brushed together once before they made solid contact and Danny shivered ever so slightly when he felt Isaac's fingertips trace down the side of his jaw while they kissed. "Isaac," Danny whispered against Isaac's lips, the name immediately stolen by Isaac's mouth.
When they broke apart an eternity later Danny felt beyond overwhelmed and took a moment to acknowledge that his body was probably a mess of hormones and stress chemicals right now.
"Yeah, now I'm doing okay," Isaac said, his lips pressed together as he struggled to hide a smile.
Danny reached over and traced his fingertip over Isaac's mouth, watching his smile break free with just a little encouragement, and he wondered if the Hunter who had walked away knew what he had given them. "We're okay," Danny agreed, his hand finding Isaac's again as they sat and breathed in the sounds and scents of their new day.