kira yukimura is electric. (electrocutie) wrote in blackpoint, @ 2014-02-13 02:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | isaac lahey (au), kira yukimura |
WHO Isaac Lahey & Kira Yukimura
WHAT Their regular homework session. They talk about the show and some research theories, but mostly experience some more UST. It remains unresolved~
WHEN Wednesday evening, February 12.
WHERE The usual place, aka Isaac’s room. ONE DAY there will be a scene change :)
RATING G!
Figuring out what makes you happy was more difficult than Isaac had initially thought. He had been hearing those words ad nauseum from those around him and hadn’t been that aware that he wasn’t happy until they had brought it up. He had been going through the motions of being fine and using dry humor for so long that it had settled over him like a second skin, but being removed from all of the drama Beacon Hills provided him a third chance to start over and attempt a more ‘normal’ life. The Ms. McCall he had known was here now so he had some sort of parental figure to make sure he didn’t keep eating Cup of Noodles for dinner when he wasn’t getting invited to dinner by Captain America and Bucky (he was still a bit sdfghj-ing over that). Talking with both the older Scott and his Scott was helping him to make some progress in separating what he knew back home, what he knew from the show, and what he was going through now. He wasn’t perfect - he had still texted Kira after watching the show to make sure she was still down a few hundred volts - but progress was progress.
If someone had asked him if homework would be one of the things that he would enjoy he would have laughed. It had always been something that he dreaded and even avoided back home. Nothing he brought home was good enough so he had stopped trying because the end result was always the same. It was different with Kira. She would reward him with a joke or a jaunty toss of whatever scarf she had commandeered that day when he got something right, and she was never too school marm-y with him. She’d roll her eyes and redirect him when he got off task (which was pretty often), and sometimes he tried to see how far he could stretch not doing something before she caught on.
He was currently sitting at his desk, homework pushed to the side as he killed time looking up spoilers for next week’s show while he waited for Kira to arrive. He had promised that he would do his homework, but he didn’t have to do it all the time. It was all about baby steps - baby steps that were getting harder to take thanks to his heightened senses and being a teenaged boy.
Even though she was a New Yorker at heart, Kira couldn’t have been anywhere but Hawaii. Of course, part of that had to do with what they were all dealing with in terms of the Nogitsune and trying to find answers for Stiles. More than that, though, she genuinely enjoyed the islands. They were so warm and inviting, such a vacation from everything they’d been dealing with at home (even if some of it had come over with them). Personally, Kira was so in love with the fact that there was so much to explore in Hawaii. The islands had so much history, and so many beautiful places to visit to explore it. Even though she hadn’t taken any more overnight trips in a few weeks, she still ventured off for a few hours every now and then to check out something she’d read or heard about.
Wednesday had been such a perfect day to do exactly that, the weather nearing 80 degrees and beautiful as school let out. She’d brought clothes from home before she’d left for school for the day, so she’d changed out of her jeans and into something a bit more suited to exploration. On the most recent episode of the show, show-Kira had donned a pair of tiny shorts and high socks while doing homework. While the camera shot of it had been gratuitous and a little awkward, the fashion choices weren’t at all unlike what she wore usually, especially in the warm weather. She had on a pair of Marvel-printed athletic shorts that were a little flouncy and very short and a loose tank top, which were over her bikini (because she’d ended up exploring another cave near the water). She also had high socks and tennis shoes, her hair a bit disheveled and wild with wispy bits falling out of the high ponytail it’d been pulled into a few hours ago. By the time she arrived at Isaac’s, she was flush-faced and glistening just a little with sweat, but very enthusiastic about her trip.
She knocked a little rhythm on his door as she arrived at it, grinning at the sight of him clearly not doing homework. “I see you’re getting a lot accomplished,” she commented.
Isaac’s hearing wasn’t gold-medal worthy. Perhaps it was the long nights he spent with nothing but his iPod for company, and it was something that he needed to get looked at if he was going to make any more bets with her about things he could hear. However, ever since she had ninja’d her way into his room he had been getting better at hearing Kira enter the apartment. He hadn’t been paying any special attention to how she walked, nope, just that it was a more familiar sound since she came in a few times a week.
He tossed his earphones to the side and sat back, stretching his arms over his head to loosen them up as he heard her approaching his room. He could already feel the usual smirk coming to his lips as he tried to guess what she’d say in response to him clearly not doing the homework he had said he’d get a head’s start on. There were so many more interesting things to do than math, not to mention so many more things to do that he enjoyed. “I’m a man of many talents,” he quipped, lowering his arms and half turning to look at her.
Isaac froze before he had completely turned, sticking someplace between a nice gentle twist and an obvious awkward ‘I was totally ogling your legs are those shorts legal’ twist. Which he was doing. Right now. “Did you and the Avengers have fun?” he quickly said, trying to come up with something to make him look less like a creep.
Luckily for Isaac, Kira hadn’t really needed to do much sneaking since that well-planned occasion. By this point, their homework sessions were so common that she knew he’d expect her anyway, so it wasn’t worth the effort. Of course, the fact that she knew he heard her coming made her infinitely less reluctant to sigh in exasperation when she saw him not working. It meant that he fully expected her to react, and she couldn’t let him down. She was at least relieved to see that he had his homework on his desk with him, so maybe he’d gotten something done.
She continued to grin as he stretched his long arms, just sure that his expression was about what she’d expect, even though he was turned away from her still. “Clearly. Googling spoilers, I see,” she responded, her eyebrows lifting. Her favorite thing were the recaps, really. She loved the hilarious captions and the snarky ways of bringing some light to such dark events.
The way he froze as he turned made her instantly blush, even if it took her just a minute to realize he was so solidly ogling her. While it made her blush and feel a little bashful, it also filled her with some confidence. “We always do,” she said, glad that her face was still so flushed that the blush was pretty indistinguishable. She moved into the room, tossing her bag onto his bed and slipping her shoes off and moving to lie on it on her stomach. “Climbed some rocks, did a tour, hung out on the beach. It was lovely,” she said, smiling. “Did you get anything done?”
“Can you blame me?” Isaac asked, hooking an arm over the back of his chair as she breezed past him towards his bed. His comment had to do with the spoiler researching, not anything to do with the way her legs looked in the socks and short shorts combo. He glanced back at the screen when a waft of her signature scent - sensual amber mixed with something uniquely Kira - hit him, blinking a bit to keep his gaze from going all Blue Shirt Seduction Tactic on her. “I found a few interesting things out about the title. Apparently it references a lichen that’s toxic to both foxes and wolves, so there’s some happy news.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck as his cheeks cooled down and grabbed his textbook with his free hand. “It depends on what you consider done,” he joked, turning back around. He did his best to focus on Kira’s face instead of following the camera’s idea of a gratuitous sweep up her legs, and held up his book. “If you count going for a run with Scott, showering, unpacking my backpack, and eating a sandwich then I did plenty.”
“Not completely, no,” she admitted, laughing. She propped herself up on her elbows -- which, in hindsight, probably didn’t help matters, given how loose her shirt was, but he’d seen her in a bikini before. Her eyes were still on him when he turned around, glad for the chance to calm herself a little from the burst of anxious nerves (butterflies, really) that had come from the way he’d first looked at her. “Does it really? That’s actually pretty interesting,” she said, clearly impressed that he’d managed as much. “And if we actually got good news from anything, I’d be totally shocked.”
If she’d been able to really get a feel for how he was reacting to all of this as well, she’d have been amused that they both were taking the moment to calm down. As it was, she was focused on her own blushy reaction and trying to quell it. She was trying her hardest not to be so flirtatious for the time being, while he was supposed to be figuring out what he wanted and what would make him happy. Of course, she was still trying to sort out her own desires, too, so the reasoning was two-fold. Even if they both failed miserably at not flirting. “Try me,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. She grinned as he listed off what he’d done, sighing and shaking her head. “I suppose it could be worse. Luckily, there’s not a whole lot of work to do tonight anyway.”
“Wait, did I just out-Google the resident Google expert?” Isaac said, sitting back in surprise. He smugly crossed his arms over his chest, preening slightly at this discovery. It wasn’t often that he surprised Kira, and it felt a little good to bring something new into whatever this was that they were doing. “Other than seeing you do a few ninja moves, that’s about as far as I got.” He was afraid that if he did too much he’d see something that he wasn’t prepared to see, so he had stuck with exploring with what the title had meant.
Isaac did his best to school his face back into a neutral expression that didn’t betray the swirling hormones and incoherency that he was feeling when Kira issued the challenge. Part of his brain told him that she was just egging him on like usual, but a larger, louder part of his brain was telling him that he should actually try her in a way that required less talking. He did his best to squash the feeling - it was just a natural reaction to a dare, right? - and settled for a slight bow, gaze dipping for a second to the gap between her shirt and bikini. Shit. He jerked his head up and turned to his book and flipped it open to give him something to do other than imagining Kira on his bed in those shorts and this bikini with that look on her face. “Yeah, can’t say I’m too worked up over that.”
“Don’t get cocky, Lahey,” she responded, pursing her lips. “I just haven’t gotten that far. I’ve been googling too many other things, thank you very much. Like the Kanji.” She grinned as he mentioned her ninja moves, actually rather excited to see how badass she could be. That was one element of the show that she was looking forward to, given that she knew her own personal abilities. If she could detach herself from the reasoning for the fights, she could just enjoy them for what they were. Somehow, she rather doubted it’d be that easy.
Her try me had meant to address his first comment about what she considered progress. When she’d said it, though, from her position barely dressed on his bed, face flushed and still glistening from being outside, it’d come out a bit more challenging. And that was dangerous. She noticed the way his gaze briefly dipped, something that sent just a tiny shiver up her spine. So much trouble. “Somehow, I’m not surprised,” she said, her thoughts betraying her briefly as she thought of what he might also be worked up over. She tucked that thought away, though. That was no good. “I found such a cool book in the library today. It’s a little more fairy tale than is terribly helpful, but the Nogitsune are mentioned,” she said, refocusing her attention on digging through her bag.
“Care to share with the class what you found?” Isaac said, a hand rising to touch behind his ear where the tattoo would be. He wasn’t aware of people getting ‘updated’ like he had heard they periodically did back when the Portal was unstable, but with his luck he’d be one of the first. He had been the first one the Oni had targeted, and while he had survived it didn’t settle his nerves that they thought of him first when they thought of dark spirits even if it made sense given his past.
“There are other things that I’m more interested in,” he said, the words slipping out before he caught them. This time it was his turn to flush, the faint blush burning his neck and ears. He was hopeless at keeping his mind on track after having his senses on overload with show-Isaac copping a feel of show-Allison on TV, Scott going after Lydia next door after their run the other night, and sensual amber Kira on his bed with her sensual amber glove buried in the stacks on his desk. Thankful for the distraction, he planted his elbows on his knees when she mentioned the tales. “Is there anything you didn’t do today?”
“Sure,” she responded, grinning. Really, her natural instinct was to tease and make him work for it. She fought the urge to challenge him for the information. She decided not to do so for two reasons. The first, and most important, was the fact that it was genuinely important information. There was no telling for sure whether or not it was legitimate, but it was interesting and could’ve been and that was a good sign. The second, which was a lesser reason of equal importance, was the fact that if she challenged him, she wasn’t quite sure what would happen. And that seemed a little too much to risk at the moment.
She blinked and looked up at him from where she was flipping through pages at his words, her eyes quickly diverting back to her page and a smile quirking at her lips at the words. Again, she was filled with that feeling of half-anxiety and half-smugness. “Nope. I like to stay busy and keep my hands full,” she said, smiling, realizing the innuendo in her words and trying not to acknowledge it too much. “Here,” she said quickly, to deflect, and pointed at the page, gesturing him over with her other hand. “Come, look.” The symbol on the page very much resembled a backwards five. “It means either self or self-control. Which could both be applicable, obviously. The tattoo was put on you because you were still yourself. The mark on the wall in the basement Stiles was in could be him struggling for self-control.”
Isaac, not as polite as Kira, was in the process of opening his mouth to comment on the joke that she bypassed when the young woman quickly changed the topic. He hesitated slightly when she beckoned him over. He could do one of two things: stay where he was because his wolf vision made seeing the picture from where he was quite easily, or do as she asked and join her on the bed. Both of them had pros and cons. If he stayed where he was he could accidentally hurt her feelings again, but he would be safe where he was. However, if he got up on the bed he’d oblige her but he wasn’t sure if he could keep his hands to himself. At the end of the day, werewolf or not, he was simply a teenage boy with a hot girl on his bed who was showing a lot more skin than he was used to.
“Scoot over, lightning bug,” he said, heaving himself out of the chair and doing as she instructed. He joined her on the bed, his long limbs taking up their fair share of the space, and stretched a hand forward to hold the book down so he could see properly. He flinched slightly when a small static shock jumped between them when his hand brushed hers, and he quickly withdrew his hand and propped himself up slightly so there was a decent gap between them. "That's, ah, really interesting," he mumbled, ducking his head as he struggled for self-control himself and flexed his hand where the shock had jumped. "Good job at finding that. Do you think," that was an accident, because it was, "that they'll ever really explain it?"
It really wasn’t so much that Kira was terribly polite, but rather that she was just really trying not to actively put herself in the position to give into her hormones without really thinking things through. She enjoyed being around Isaac, and she couldn’t seem to resist flirty banter, but she didn’t want to get into something physical with him until they both had a better understanding of their own wants and needs. She didn’t want to end up in something that would only complicate their entire dynamic. But it was hard not to put herself in these positions, and she kept inadvertently making them worse.
While bringing Isaac over to see the book had made sense in her head when she’d concocted it as a plan, actually having him closer and on the bed with her was really a bad idea. The little burst of static made her jump as well, not really because she felt it (because she absorbed shocks like that with ease) but because it was a startling little flash that she’d not caused herself. “Isn’t it?” she said, trying steadily to focus her attention on the book and not on the handsome, lanky werewolf at her side. “Now, it’s just one symbol in a language made up of them, so there could be other meanings, but I thought this one was interesting,” she said. “I do, yeah. I don’t think they’d use it if they didn’t have some wonky explanation for it. Now, whether or not it really answers anything or just raises more questions remains to be seen.”
Isaac propped his chin on his fist, taking a moment to think through what he was going to say. He was known for repeating the obvious - it was the easiest way to go when contributing to the group – but he was trying to contribute something original. He didn’t know why it mattered so much. Maybe it was because he was tired of people questioning why he was there, or possibly it was because he had people that believed in him. It could even just be a new side effect of the approaching Hawaiian full moon, or maybe it was because sensual amber did funny things to his nervous system.
“It makes sense if you think of the walls of the basement being Stiles’ skull since it was happening inside his head,” he settled on, drawing a circle on the bed. That still didn’t answer why the Kanji had actually been on the wall when the others had gone down to find him, but that could be described as something later. “From what I’ve heard about the show it wouldn’t surprise me if they just left it without an explanation. They don’t have the best track record for resolving things.”
It was a strange undertaking, this more recent drive to make Isaac realize how useful and necessary he was. She had gotten a vibe from him, both indirectly and a little outright, that he felt a little useless, and she knew that to be ridiculous. She knew what it was to provide information or ideas that ultimately weren’t relevant. Hell, most of what she came up with fell under that category. But she didn’t have the same history as Isaac did. She knew that part of the reason why he tended to see himself as a little useless was because he’d probably been told that he was useless for quite some time growing up. She wanted better things for him. She wanted him to feel important and like he belonged and like he had plenty to offer.
“Right, exactly. Good point,” she said, nodding. “I feel like that place will have significance, too. The fact that it was a mental asylum seems pretty important, given what’s going on. They also said on the show that Stiles was trying to protect everyone, so that might explain why he led them to the basement when he wasn’t actually there. I’m not really sure why, specifically, he wouldn’t want his father to know, though.” She shrugged, reaching to push some fallen hair back. “Who really knows, though. Like you said, there are a lot of plot holes.”
Isaac had agreed with his show-self when he had said that the whole thing was insane, and the scissors jammed in the bedspread hadn’t helped to disprove that theory. Who did that? He had been half expecting it to come out and stab someone, but this was just an episode of their show, not another Paranormal Activity-esque show. He genuinely hoped that they were able to figure everything out both on the show and on the island, especially before something happened here where they were missing Doctor Deaton, Kira’s mom, and even Derek to some degree to help explain things.
“We could probably talk about this all night and still not get it right,” Isaac laughed, stretching his legs out behind him and bumping her foot in the process. “Not that I’m complaining, because I’m not. I just – ah – feel like I’m going in circles.” No, no complaints here. He was fine talking about anything but homework or the way his stomach had clenched when he made contact with her.
It really seemed like the whole tone of their show lately had completely transitioned away from what’d been in the earlier seasons. Kira had taken the time to marathon all of the episodes shortly after arriving, and the ways it’d changed from that first season to this current one were honestly a little baffling. It seemed like an entirely different genre. Considering that it was shown on MTV amongst Teen Mom and The Real World, it was all a sort of surreal experience altogether. It didn’t really make much sense. And yet, there they were, on a show that’d gone incredibly psychological and dark very suddenly.
“You’re right,” she responded, grinning. She didn’t really mind the way their feet bumped together, even if it sent another little burst of butterflies through her. Her brow furrowed, her smile still on her face as he continued. “You’re a dork,” she said, laughing.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Isaac teased, cupping his ear and leaning closer towards her. He could forgive the dork comment because it was pretty much true, but he couldn’t let the first comment slide without giving her too much grief. “I could have sworn you just said that I was right.”
He raised his eyebrows expectantly as he looked over her, trying not to focus too much on the short distance between them. He didn’t move in for the awkward head bump attempt of a kiss that show-Isaac had done, but he couldn’t lie and say it wasn’t on his mind. It was confusing in two ways - one, that he actually wanted to kiss Kira, but two, that he didn’t want it to come off as if he was just doing it because he had seen a version of him doing it for millions to see. Like so many had been trying to tell him, their lives weren’t dictated by what happened on the show, but it really got in the way when there were things that he wanted to do that might have came across as him wanting to do it because it was done on the show. He had already blurred those lines once in spectacular fashion.
His teasing words made her eyebrows lift in amusement and she rolled her eyes, reaching to push him hard against the shoulder. Of course, hard for her, especially in this position, was little more than a firm nudge against someone so much bigger and more solidly built than she was. “Shut up. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “You’re delusional.”
She looked back at him, her chin tucked a little and her hair, though up on her head, still falling across a shoulder. One of the straps of her loose top had fallen down it, something that she wasn’t actually aware of but surely wasn’t making this all any easier. This is where the trouble was, really. She’d invited Isaac over here to the bed with her, and now here they were, and it was much harder to resist the physical, but she knew she had to try. “So yes,” she said, turning her eyes back to the book, though the words were utterly useless in actually accomplishing anything.
“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about,” Isaac rocked slightly as Kira pushed him, doing his best to loosen up so he could sway enough for her to feel like she had done some sort of damage. He almost felt sorry for her hand, but she wasn’t someone to pity. He had seen her fight and knew she was capable of fending for herself, even if he didn’t like seeing a live wire coming towards her. He had seen a later clip to know that she was okay, but it still had given him a shock - no pun intended - to see it happen so quickly on screen.
His gaze dipped down once again as he caught the flash of skin her shirt had exposed, and he felt his stomach tense for the second time as he restrained himself from brushing her long hair off of it. They had joked about werewolf hormones in the past, and while it was easier to poke fun at their show versions, he now knew firsthand what his show-self had been feeling and it really wasn’t a joking matter. He curled his fingers into the comforter to keep them from reaching up and fixing her shirt, settling instead to lift his gaze back up to Kira and tilt his head in an encouraging fashion. “Yes?” he echoed, brow furrowing slightly as he tried to puzzle out where she had been trying to go.
“If it makes you feel better to think that, then I suppose I’ll give you that. For your own good, anyway,” Kira responded, shrugging. She knew perfectly well that the way he swayed was totally an act, because she knew that she wasn’t in the right positioning to push him hard enough to achieve it, but she grinned, accepting it anyway. It hadn’t really bothered her to see herself on-screen yet, even still. The strangest thing so far had been seeing her mother, oddly enough. It made her miss her desperately.
They could talk about werewolf hormones all day, but human teenage hormones were just as significant. Kira didn’t need a werewolf bite to feel just as hormonal, though she thankfully didn’t have the heightened senses like Isaac did. At his question, she looked back at him, then laughed, shaking her head. “Nothing. Stop looking at me like that,” she said, nudging him again with her shoulder.
“It does, and that makes you solely responsible for feeding my growing ego,” Isaac joked. Truth was he was getting a bit more of a swagger in his step since coming here – but this wasn’t due to his newfound wolfiness. This was about him growing into himself as Isaac, a teenaged werewolf, not a teenaged werewolf named Isaac. The difference was subtle, but he wasn’t using the bite to hide himself; he was trying to be more human like Scott promoted.
“Like what?” Isaac exclaimed, not needing her shove to throw him off balance. He pressed his arm deeper into the bed to keep from tumbling off the bed. Falling wouldn’t be the best thing to do, no matter how much it would make her laugh. “I’m going to need some clarification there, sparky.”
Because Kira came from a good bit after Isaac did, she’d seen a bit more of his transition from being a part of Derek’s pack to who he’d become as a part of Scott’s. As a result, she knew absolutely the sort of growth he was capable of making, and she wanted him to have some of that now. She’d already seen it, especially lately, and knew that he was starting to come into his own. That only furthered her investment in his success. “Solely responsible? I don’t think I’m prepared for that, so I reject it.”
She knew she shouldn’t have drawn attention to it, even if she honestly hadn’t been commenting on anything in particular anyway. It had been more of a nervous comment, something she’d said because she hadn’t been able to think of anything else and under his gaze, she felt a little warm. “Nope,” she said, searching for something else to focus on. “Sooo... homework?”
“One day you’ll accept something I say,” Isaac smirked and placed a hand over his heart in mock hurt, but secretly he didn’t mind. He enjoyed their back and forth, and while he could guess that she’d take what he said with a grain of salt he still couldn’t predict how she’d take something. Reading people correctly wasn’t his strong point, but it was getting easier to tell when something was brewing behind her dark, wide eyes.
He groaned and flopped forward, any motivation he had for working on their history homework having left when they had started talking about theories and her shoulder had made its debut appearance. “You just had to say the h-word.”
“One day, maybe. But it is not this day,” she said, unable to resist the Aragorn quote. Kira grinned at his dramatics, rolling her eyes. “Dork.” The truth of the matter was that she’d spent quite a decent amount of time voluntarily single, focusing on the shenanigans in Beacon Hills rather than on trying to make anything out of anything. She hadn’t been completely abstinent in that time, but even that had been a long time comparatively. Her flirtation with Isaac had started off as quite confident and meaningless fun, and it still was very much that a lot of the time (maybe without the meaningless). Lately, though, some of her more bashful tendencies had come out and she’d gotten just a touch awkward. It could’ve been much worse, of course, and usually just manifested with tense silence that was awkwardly broken, as evidenced by what had just happened.
She laughed at his flop, rather glad for the change of subject to break away from their miserably unresolved sexual tension. “I would be a terrible tutor if I didn’t.”
“You’re quoting movies at me and I’m the dork,” Isaac played, carrying the dramatics a bit further before laughing. He had taken advantage of some of the bad boy status he had gotten at school when he had first appeared after his transformation. The attention was something he hadn’t gotten before, but he had tempered down once Derek made it clear what he had been turned for. The training had helped add definition to his long muscles, something that wasn’t as easy to cover up with his collection of sweaters, and the girls at school had taken note. He had been content to brood between the downtime, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t spent some time being occupied in other ways. He’d probably just stumble through explaining it.
Following directions was something that he did do well, so he reached for the book he had dropped on his way to sit beside Kira and snagged his backpack on the way up. “No, but you’d be a better friend if you did,” he joked, opening his book and sliding it over to her.
“See, it works because I’m me and I can pull it off. You’re just a dork,” she responded. Kira had luckily not spent nearly as much time in the shadows as she did on the show, but she’d still done a great deal of observing from the sidelines before the girls had brought her in. She’d watched her group of friends before they were her friends, and she’d taken a particular interest in watching Erica, Boyd, and Isaac when they’d suddenly gotten their random makeover. It’d been an interesting sight, but she’d overheard the girls discussing how handsome they all were (beautiful in Erica’s case). She’d have been surprised if he hadn’t gotten up to some extracurriculars, frankly.
And now that handsome man was on a bed beside her. Funny how things worked. She smiled as he pushed the book toward her, opening it to the chapter they were working on. “How far have you gotten?” she asked, looking at him curiously. Given that they were both looking at the book while he worked, their proximity was much closer than they’d been before. Oh gosh. So much trouble.
“Hold on to your Avengers,” Isaac smiled, half of his face lifting in a one of his signature grins that he flashed at Kira, and reached over so he could flip a few pages deeper into the text. It wasn’t a lot of progress, but their history text wasn’t the most interesting read. He had spent a bit of time skimming through it so she wouldn’t wipe the floor with him when she got there, but his knowledge was just a little bit better than superficial at best. Hopefully he’d be able to remember part of it now that he was shoulder to shoulder with her.
“The Archduke was just shot and Europe’s going crazy. It’s not too different than what happened at home if you just subtract a few hundred thousand participants and throw in a dash of the supernatural,” he outlined, pointing to where he had placed a sticky note to mark where he was.
Surely, those signature grins of Isaac’s had gotten more disarming lately. There must’ve been something in the water here in Hawaii that made her infinitely more susceptible to them. For so long, she was relatively un-phased by them. She could go about her life without being manipulated by puppy faces or charming grins. Now, though, that signature grin of his sent little chills through her. Damn it. “Holding,” she said, laughing.
She read over what was marked, then looked over at what he’d written. She grinned, reaching across him to take his pencil from him, erasing a few things and writing them again. “You misspelled,” she explained. Of course, reaching across him put her even closer to him, and that posed a new issue.
Isaac had a hard time justifying why he hadn’t spent more time with Kira back home. He had been quick to lump her in with Allison and had kept her safely in the “off limits” box due to being friends with part of a family who had tried to off his pack. Here, however, he wasn’t sure where she belonged. She was the person he traded bad puns with, the person he accidentally cuddled with on their first camping trip, the girl who helped him make sense of his math homework, and the girl whose glove had ultimately cost him his favorite scarf. And now she was the girl who was making it very difficult to pay attention to his homework.
He pressed against her arm as he leaned forward, frowning at what she was erasing. “If you correct that she’ll know that I had help,” he reminded her, nodding towards the misspelling she was working on creating and reaching for another pencil to erase behind her. “Only the most attentive students can spell that.”
Kira didn’t really know why they’d not spent much time together back home either. She mostly had stuck to her girls then, it was true, but she’d had more and more contact with the wolves as they’d had to start working together. She didn’t have as many biases against the wolves as Allison or even Lydia, as she didn’t have any direct interactions with any of them to lead her to hate them as a general rule. She didn’t care for the Hales out of solidarity for what they’d done, but she saw no problems really with Scott’s pack. Though she couldn’t figure out what had kept them from being friends before, she knew where they were now – even if she couldn’t figure out what it meant.
With her leaning over and him pressing against her, they were even closer and more tangled. “It’s a proper noun, though. And a vocab word,” she said, grinning, looking over her shoulder at him. Which let her realize just how close their faces had ended up. She blushed, looking back at the paper. “At least get it a little closer.”
Isaac wasn’t entirely sure how they’d gotten entwined, but suddenly his attention was diverted everywhere but on the word he was being told to change. He could feel the curve of her hip against his side as she pressed against him to scribble something over, the muscles in her side flexing as she twisted around to look at him, and he was pretty sure if he moved just an inch forward he’d be able to find out just exactly how her lips would feel against his. It was safe to say that homework was pretty much the furthest thing on his mind at the moment.
He let his head drop to the side when she turned around, subconsciously following her directive to get closer and thanking the stars that she wouldn’t be able to see the way his jaw clenched when he realized how close he was to actually resting his head on her shoulder. “Isn’t it close enough?” he asked, not feeling too compelled to change it.
As soon as she’d turned to look over her shoulder and realized just how close they were, she’d been unable to think of anything but it as well. She knew he could hear her heartbeat, compliments of his werewolf skills, and she knew he’d hear it quickening, but there was nothing to be done about that. She could feel his muscles shifting and moving against her as a well, and it made her a little tense. Just a little.
She’d not realized how her words could be interpreted until they were out of her mouth, but she knew that they were closer even now. She had turned her head away, but that didn’t change the fact that he was at her side, their arms tangled a little. “Close enough!” she said, almost a little too cheerfully, adjusting gently to untangle herself so that she could flip the page in the book.
“I’ll take it,” he said, even though Isaac didn’t agree with Kira that things were close enough. He didn’t want to press matters any farther than what he was currently doing. Foxes and werewolves didn’t normally get along, but neither did werewolves and electricity. It was one force that could temporarily paralyze them, stealing their abilities, so he was being cautious not to get accidentally zapped for doing something that spooked her.
He leaned back slightly so she could turn the page, taking a moment to redistribute his weight and crossing his ankles as tried to ease the tension that was settling in his body as a result of her own. “Not too shabby, right? I told you you’d be surprised.”
Kira didn’t really think they were close enough either, but she was really, really trying to ignore that part of her. She couldn’t give in like this. There was a definite reason why she was waiting as she was, and it was an important one. She wanted Isaac to understand himself and his needs better and to know that he really did want what he wanted, and the same for her. So sure, they could give in now, but it would be better if they waited. But gosh, it was tempting.
The way he adjusted helped. She could do this. “Not too shabby,” she agreed. “We’ve still got a ways to go yet.”
Even though Isaac was familiar with slow and steady wins the race, it didn’t mean that he had to be a fan of it in that particular moment. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to fully understand what went on in his head no matter how many times he talked to people about it, but a little bit of reassurance went a long way with him. He was coming to terms with the fact that he liked Kira outside of others telling him that he should ‘go for it,’ but he didn’t want to put their friendship in jeopardy until he could figure out if she was on board with it as well. However, right now it seemed that homework was the plan.
Not trusting himself not to do anything rash since they had a bit more work to get through, he grabbed his notebook and retreated to the desk chair. He crossed and ankle over so it was resting on his knee, creating a shelf for his work, and faced Kira. Sure, he still had a pretty good view of her bare shoulder and what all it was attached to, but he was less likely to do something either of them could regret if he had a little bit of distance between them.
He cleared his throat and glanced down at his paper, pencil poised over the next question. He could do this. It was just homework, and he could use a little bit of watermeloning if his mind started to wander again towards the woman reclining on his bed with no one being the wiser. “Let’s get this over with.”