Work Text:
There are many consequences of buying gas ten dollars at the time. Chief among them, Stiles thinks, is that you have to remember to fill it up the tank constantly. His jeep hates him right now, the engine utterly refusing to turn over in this driving rain. It’s the Friday before spring break, and everyone split from the parking lot faster than Stiles could search for service and call someone.
So here he sits, feeling the stamped plastic of his steering wheel become intimately acquainted with his forehead, his red hoodie up over his kind of soaked hair, his hands fisted in anger in the pockets. Scott will eventually notice he’s gone, right?
Right.
Stiles is lost in his jackrabbiting thoughts, so the clink of metal on his window jolts him out of his own pity party, freaking out a little to see a huge black orb dominating his droplet smeared window. What the--
A small silver key catches his attention, glinting through the glass at him, and Stiles follows the pale white hand that holds it, turning to land on the not quite alien head dominating most of the square picture. Isaac’s face is revealed as he peels the tinted visor up, and Stiles backs up in his seat, confused until he remembers that Isaac has his own bike now. He’s apparently got an all black ‘god I’m so tortured and mysterious’ helmet to go with it. How come Derek left all the fun toys to Isaac when he left?
Stiles raises an eyebrow at Isaac, wondering just what the hell he wants. Isaac lifts up a silver helmet in his other hand, the one not leaned against the glass holding the silver key. He nods towards the helmet, looking back at Stiles. “I can give you a ride home.” It’s muffled through the door, but Stiles gets the point. There’s also no one else in this fucking parking lot, and its not like anyone else is going to help him anyways. He rolls his eyes, sliding the zip of his hoodie up to his neck, and shoves the keys to his dead baby in his front pocket. He sneers up at the rain as he ducks out of his car, kind of pushing Isaac with the door as he jumps out and slams it behind him.
“Fine. Because this is exactly how I wanted to start my spring break. With a sixty mile per hour cold shower. Great.” He lifts the silver helmet off of Isaac and brushes his hood back, irate that no one but Isaac seems to have cared to wonder where he is. Ok, so maybe he didn’t make any specific plans with anyone but it still hurts. He takes off for the black and dark blue bike on the other side of the parking lot without waiting for Isaac, shimmying the helmet on to his head. He doesn’t even stop to question why Isaac’s there as late as he is, or why he’s got a spare helmet with him.
Stiles ends up having to hit the top of the helmet with his fist to get it to go all the way down, and the pads inside squeeze up to his cheeks, making him feel like a ridiculous chipmunk. Good thing the visor is down and tinted almost black, because Stiles’ face is uncomfortably warm. He examines the sportsbike. This is a bike for douchebags, and the only passengers on these kinds of bikes are skinny girlfriends in boots. Isaac fits the first part of the equation, but Stiles is neither in boots, nor Isaac’s girlfriend.
Thank god there’s a visor on this thing.
Isaac isn’t far behind, having already flipped his visor down by the time he rounds Stiles at the back of the bike. He climbs on, the engine roaring to life in the pouring rain, and Stiles is instantly jealous. Also, how the hell does he get on this thing?
Isaac kicks up the stand with his left foot, and looks over his shoulder. Stiles doesn’t even need to see his face to know that Isaac is giving him that look, and he snaps his hands out of his pockets, totally trying to ignore how weird this whole thing is. Isaac looks like he did back in sophomore year, the leather jacket and all. Stiles balances one hand on the edge of the jacket (Isaac’s shoulder to be more precise) stepping on to the peg so hard he almost unbalances the bike when he swings his other leg over to sit on the back. The black orb that is Isaac’s head still isn’t looking forward, and Stiles thinks he hears Isaac say something, which is stupid because this helmet muffles everything.
Stiles reaches out to flip up the visor enough to hear but not enough to see Isaac’s face, doing the same to his own. “You have to hold on to something, or you’ll fall right off.” Isaac moves one hand away from the handlebar and taps the insignia on the gas tank in front of him before reaching up with the same hand to snap his helmet back together, looking ahead and revving the engine. Stiles doesn’t really have time to fret, the motorcycles jumping forward and Stiles ignores how strange this would look to literally everyone and crosses his hands over the gas tank, trying not to touch Isaac.
It was a stupid plan from the beginning, though, because not only does Stiles’ slightly ajar visor clink into Isaac’s helmet, he feels like he’s about to fall off. Stiles panics, moving his hand away from around Isaac faster than he thought possible, running his hand down the front of the helmet to close it off against the rain as they leave the parking lot. Isaac apparently has no intention of taking things slowly at all, and Stiles anchors himself to Isaac’s torso in what is totally not a hug the second they turn out of the parking lot, the acceleration of the bike totally foreign to Stiles.
Manual shift on a sportsbike is way different than his jeep, and the breaking mixed with the accelerating as they wind through the forest roads is throwing off Stiles’ center of gravity and forcing him to slip into Isaac every time they slow down, their helmets banging together. If they go down, Stiles is going to lose all of the skin off his arms and back, the red hoodie offering next to no protection. He’d rather not think about how he could get smeared across the highway though, so he focuses instead on the phone he can feel he’s pressing into Isaac’s back from his jacket pockets. Damn they’re close.
Stiles is surprised to find he’s not complaining about it.
Apparently motorcyclists are not beholden to speed limits, and they make it to Stiles’ house way faster than he ever could in the jeep with all the rain. Isaac steers them onto the sidewalk a few houses away from his own, and the rises and falls of the driveways make Stiles a little sick to his stomach. He does not want to throw up in this helmet though, so he swallows and ends up leaning further into Isaac, gravity helping him along as Isaac stops the bike in front of Stiles’ porch.
Stiles’ muscles are twitchy with unexpected ache, light from being released from their tension. Isaac turned off the bike, but he’s apparently waiting for Stiles to get off. He wants to, in a hurry, because how did Isaac know where Stiles lives? He’s oddly flattered. Did he text Scott to find out where to take him? Stiles doesn’t remember ever having Isaac at his house.
He ends up kneeing Isaac’s back in his rush to get off the back of the bike, landing on one foot and almost biting the concrete with his lack of coordination and grace. Stiles sticks his tongue out at the snicker coming from under the black helmet still on the bike, and Stiles turns on his heels to march up to his porch, reaching for his keys.
The clang of the kickstand surprises him, his hand freezing on the key inside of his lock as he watches Isaac lithely dismount, a weird flutter in his stomach that must be jealousy. He stays with his hand frozen on the door even as Isaac comes to face him underneath the overhang. Isaac reaches up to knock on the side of Stiles’ helmet twice, his other hand in his pocket.
Stiles tries to speak through the visor, rolling his shoulders when he remembers they can’t hear anything. He looks up at Isaac’s black helmet, and backs up a little to bend and reach behind his own helmet to ease it off, so embarrassed that he was about to walk inside his house with it still on. He straightens up to hand it to Isaac, looking back at where the black helmet should have been as he hooks the silver helmet to his arm and nestles it to the side of himself.
He doesn’t notice his jaw is hanging open as Isaac reaches underneath the helmet, pulling straight up and slipping the helmet off his head like the hood of a jacket, bearing the most incredible throat Stiles has ever seen--
Wait what? Stiles tilts his head to the side, turning bright red as he tries to open the door to his house without looking, not quite turning the key. Isaac stares down at Stiles for what seems like ten minutes, but in reality is only long enough for Isaac to lean into him and push their foreheads together, the smallest ghost of a kiss left on Stiles’ lips.
Stiles eyes widen, shocked as he stares into Isaac’s but he doesn’t get to stay in the blue of them as long as he would like, because Isaac is already taking a step away from him, putting the helmet back on and half running down the stairs of the porch back to the bike.
Stiles’ face hurts he’s smiling so hard, and he doesn’t even know why. “Isaac, I still have your helmet!” Isaac doesn’t turn to acknowledge him at all, just does a lazy salute from the black plastic of the helmet in goodbye. The bike roars to life as Isaac jumps back on, and Stiles thinks he might see just the slightest of tremors in Isaac’s fingers as he pulls down the clutch to leave. The black helmet turns at the last second, looking towards Stiles, copying his earlier head tilt. What Stiles would give to see the face that’s blacked away right now. Its absolutely no fair that Isaac can see he’s as red as his hoodie right now.
Stiles tries to wave but ends up shrugging his shoulder more than anything else, and Isaac lifts a few fingers off the clutch at him before turning to look ahead, the bike taking off, the loudest thing Stiles (and his neighbors) will hear today.
His phone buzzes, pulling Stiles back to reality, staring at the bright screen instead of the slats of his window shade, the light outside streaking over his desk. Be ready in ten? Ready for what? What does Isaac mean?
Stiles runs out of the house and down the wooden steps of the porch at the sound of a bike shutting off, the orange street lights illuminating the shine of everything that’s still covered in the half dry drops of rain from earlier this afternoon. He already put the helmet on, and the door slams behind him while he skips over the steps and half-runs towards the bike and the black helmet waiting at the end of the drive. Stiles doesn’t pull them off center this time as he climbs on, leaning straight away into Isaac’s back, sighing because he wants to at least pretend Isaac can’t hear him through the helmet before the acceleration knocks Stiles back and they leave his street behind.
Needless to say, it turned out to be a very interesting spring break.
