A/N:

And no fucks were given that day.

When Isaac comes to his house, dripping wet and possibly on the verge of some kind of Derek induced meltdown, Scott doesn't know what to do. He knows he's got to help Isaac, because they're friends and Isaac's been through a lot, but there's not much he can say to someone so broken. He's had problems but his problems can't hold a candle to Isaac's and, while Scott's about as compassionate as they come, it intimidates him. What do you say to someone like Isaac?

He lets Isaac stay, of course, and he lets Isaac use his shower. When the water shuts off and Isaac steps out in dry pajamas and a deep, deep sadness that's laced with a guilt that makes Scott sick, well, Scott kind of goes nuts. He wants Isaac to feel better, but the weight of it all is keeping him from thinking rationally, so he throws up a hand to keep Isaac from following him and dashes to the hall closet and grabs all the blankets he can find. They have a lot of blankets because Scott's mom insists they're good to have around and she's right; blankets are extremely good to have around. He brings them back to his room and he throws them on the floor and he says, "Let's make a fort." and Isaac just stands there.

"A what?"

"A fort." He repeats and grabs a blanket, "Let's build a fort."

There are a thousand ways to build a fort and Isaac doesn't know any of them. Scott tells his to grab some rubber bands from the kitchen drawer and he comes back empty handed, frowning, and mumbling about not knowing which drawer to check. Scott feels a pang of sympathy, not even he's sure which drawer to check sometimes, and leaves Isaac to guard the blankets while he ravages every single drawer in search of rubber bands.

They all snap when Isaac tries to work them and Scott notices that the other teen's hands are shaking. He grabs a rubber band from the bag and shows Isaac how to do it, careful like his mom taught (because Scott had a tendency to cry when they snapped on him) and Isaac catches on. He's soon working rubber bands like a pro and the sadness is replaced with curiosity and maybe a little happiness as well.

"What's your favorite color?" Scott twists a rubber band into place and Isaac snaps another one, but he doesn't seem to mind.

"Green."

It's then that Scott notices all the rubber bands actually functioning on Isaac's side of the fort are green, and he figures the snapping of the rubber bands is more deliberate than he thought. It's devious and childish and he doesn't bring it up because, what the hell, they're just rubber bands. All of his are blue, though that's because he fishes them out of he bag. To each his own and all.

"Mine is blue."

"I like blue."

"Blue and green are really similar."

The blankets are all fuzzy and warm and really, really comfortable. Scott's been up late the past few nights and he's tired, but Isaac actually seems excited about the fort, so he keeps his eyes on the end of the tunnel and continues rubber banding blankets together. He realizes that they have nowhere to drape the blankets, and they need pillows to lay on, and the blanket fort is probably going to sag in the middle, but he survived that way when he was a kid. If Kid Scott could handle all of these problems, Teen Scott can.

Isaac's eyes are drooping as bad as Scott's, but his fingers are just as careful with the rubber bands (at least with the green ones) as before. He yawns and Scott yawns in reply and they have a whole conversation in yawns before Isaac abandons his current blanket/rubber band project and sprawls on the blankets. Scott takes this as the perfect opportunity to sprawl with him and they end up sprawled all over and around each other.

"What's your favorite movie?" Scott manages to get out before his eyes fall shut for the last time and Isaac mumbles something that could be Iron Man, but could also be something like Titanic. It's not even really a mumble, more like a contented sigh, and Scott can't smell or sense the depression anymore.

He falls asleep sprawled on top of Isaac and a blanket fort that never got to be a fort, though he's sure they can complete it when they wake up. He dreams he's in a real fort and Isaac comes to hide out because he's in trouble and they battle a dragon together. The dragon has blue scales and a roar way worse than its bite, but it still manages to burn Scott's shoulder pretty bad. But, the burn feels kind of wait, and the dragon's roar is more like sniffling-

Isaac's crying with his face pressed to Scott's shoulder and when Scott wakes him up he just cries harder. For one, bleary moment Scott thinks he's crying over the blanket fort and he instinctively reaches for another rubber band because, goddammit, he wouldn't have fallen asleep if he knew it was this important. But Isaac's mumbling confessions faster than Stiles rattles out facts and Scott can catch words like 'nightmare' and 'freezer' in the middle of things like 'dad' and 'now Derek'. He rubs Isaac's back in a comforting way and listens to the story of how Isaac ended up at his house, building a blanket fort, instead of at Derek's, building a plan for something bigger than a pack of scared teens can handle.

"It's okay, it's okay."

When the tears turn to quiet sniffles and the blankets feel warm and inviting again Scott presses his lips to Isaac, tasting salt and a weird kind of denial, like Isaac is used to pretending that everything's fine. His mouth tastes like toothpaste and guilt, because everything's Isaac's fault in Isaac's eyes. Scott hopes his mouth tastes like reassurance and hope, but he can't be sure, because he can't really remember if he brushed his teeth today.

Maybe it does taste like something good, because Isaac smiles when he pulls away and they stay on their soon to be a blanket fort and don't say anything. They breath together and they taste one another in their mouths and, yeah, life sucks but life sucks a lot of the time, you just have to keep living.

They fall asleep sprawled over and around each other and the blanket fort doesn't seem to care that it's original purpose has been trumped and rubber bands go flying as they move around in their sleep. Scott never learns what happens after the dragon, but his burned shoulder is better, so he spends the rest of the night reliving old conversations with Stiles, except now they are in space and sometimes they mention tacos.

And in the morning he finds that Isaac is smiling in his sleep and Scott kisses him to wake him up. They finish the blanket fort and it sags in the middle and they floor is hard because Scott forgets to get pillows, but it's something they made together. It keeps out memories and fears and worries and concerns, though it doesn't keep out Scott's mom when she tells them they need to go do something.

She doesn't take the fort down though and Scott takes that as some sort of acceptance, some sort of sign, like she's proud of him for building something with a broken boy who just needs someone to love.

One side of the fort is green rubber bands, one side of the fort is blue rubber bands, but blue and green are really similar anyway.