NOTE: Recipe is at the end of the fic! Happy birthday, Gabe! You're the biggest Scisaac fan with the biggest heart. Thanks for being you!

"You will be paired up in groups of my choosing," the home economics teacher sang as she fluttered around the classroom, tapping random students on the head and calling out numbers. Scott exchanged a look with Stiles, and hoped silently that they would be paired together. Neither boy could really cook that well, but at least they would have fun attempting it.

Or, perhaps he would be paired with Allison. Her family always had great food for dinner, so surely she must have inherited some chef genes. Nevermind that they'd broken up and were completely awkward around each other. He could get passed that if he received a passing grade in return.

He hadn't expected the teacher to tap him on the head, give him the number 8 and a few seconds later, give the second number 8 to none other than Isaac Lahey.

Scott wasn't disappointed so much as he was astonished. Could Isaac cook?

As the class re-situated themselves so that they could sit next to their new partners, Scott shifted a little awkwardly around Isaac. When they were side by side, fighting the dangers of Beacon Hills, he could get along with the curly haired wolf, but sitting together in a Home Economics classroom was something else entirely. He wanted to be friends with Isaac, he really did. He wasn't so sure about Isaac's end, though. They'd started out fighting for two opposing causes after all.

"Hey," Isaac greeted, giving Scott a curt nod as he did so.

Scott imitated the greeting with a little wave. "You ready for this assignment?"

Isaac just shrugged and tapped his pencil on the desk in front of him. "It's just a cooking project."

"Can you cook at all?"

"A bit. I had to learn at some point. It's not that hard."

"Huh," Scott watched Isaac continue to torture the desk with his pencil. "I can boil an egg and use the microwave, but not at the same time."

Isaac cracked a little smile. "Are you serious?"

Scott raised his hands in his defense, "Totally. That's why I need to get a good grade on his project. You might not care, but I do."

"Who says I don't care?"

Scott narrowed his eyes at Isaac like he couldn't believe what he'd said. "You look like you want to be anywhere but here."

Isaac leaned over a little toward Scott, as if he were letting him in on a secret. "It's school. Of course I don't want to be here."

"You used to get good grades," Scott reminded him. "What happened?"

"You used to get good grades, too," Isaac pointed out smugly. "Ever think it might be the same reason?"

"No. I think you had an easier transformation than I did."

Isaac raised his eyebrows at Scott in amusement. "Oh, do you, now?"

"Yeah," Scott said, a little stronger, now. "You were given a choice. You volunteered. I didn't."

Isaac shut his eyes for a brief moment and breathed slowly through his nose. Scott knew he might have stepped on a few boundaries, but he really needed a good grade and Isaac didn't look like he was going to help him with it, much. Finally, Isaac opened his eyes slowly and said, "My dad pushed me into academic excellence and he died right after I received the bite. Maybe I'm enjoying a little bit of grade-free home-life right now. Ever think of that?"

Scott stopped pointing out Isaac flaws and just watched his face for a moment. Maybe he was trying. Maybe he did care, but it was too much for him to act like he did. It wasn't like this assignment was particularly hard. So long as they didn't set anything on fire, they would be okay. "Good point."

Isaac raised his eyebrows. "See? Try and make me care about this assignment."

Scott let out a loud rush of air through his lips and ran a hand through his hair. If Isaac wanted to be difficult, then Scott could be difficult, too. "I want a good grade, so if we fail, you can let the fact that I've lost all of my hopes and dreams of getting into a decent college ride on your conscience."

"Fine," Isaac sighed, unfolded his arms, and sat up in his chair, "What do we have to make?"

Scott's eyes roamed over the assignment briefly. "It says we've got to make a sweet dish or a savory dish."

Isaac didn't even bother thinking about before he held his hands up and declared, "Sweet. No contest."

Well, that was easy. With a shrug, Scott began reading over the directions for the sweet category. The options definitely looked a little tastier than the savory section, but also more complicated. There were way more ingredients in some of the recipes for one thing. As he read, Isaac didn't make a sound and eventually Scott glanced upward to see if he was even listening.

When Scott finally caught Isaac's eye, Isaac nodded toward something behind them. "Allison keeps looking over here."

Scott quickly turned around just to see if Isaac was telling the truth and he was. Allison gave him a slight wave, which he returned easily. Isaac didn't appear pleased.

"You don't have to pair with me," he said quietly. "I'll switch and tell the teacher that we are incompatible."

Okay, so maybe Scott wanted to be paired up with Allison at first, but it had nothing to do with the fact that they'd dated and everything to do with the fact that her family really enjoyed making things in the kitchen. He felt like he'd been reprimanded somehow and he couldn't help sounding a little peeved as he answered, "No, its fine. The longer I stay away from her house the better."

Isaac didn't seem to understand. "It's nice to know I'm not a distraction."

"It's not like that," Scott pleaded.

"Oh you'd just rather spend your time making out with her, I get it," Isaac said. He didn't even hide the annoyance in his voice. Scott figured he shouldn't have to hide his own annoyance, either.

"It's not like that," he said again. "We broke up. Her dad's still not one of the best people to be around. There's anti-werewolf everything in her house. Try baking under those conditions. I just want an A, okay?"

Scott wondered if his words were a little harsh because Isaac fell silent again and went back to tapping his pencil on the desk. Rather than try to dig a deeper hole, Scott went back to reading out various options in the sweet category but Isaac didn't respond to any of them. With an exasperated sigh, Scott set down the paper and glared at Isaac. "Dude, you said you'd be cool."

"Fine, give me the sheet." Isaac reached over and snatched the paper from in front of Scott, skimmed it for a second and then let it float back down as if it no longer existed. "Red Velvet Cupcakes."

Scott picked up the assignment again to study the recipe Isaac picked out. It didn't look too bad, but it required a lot of ingredients and weird versions of flour. "Cupcakes?" he scrunched up his nose, "Not like, the super easy chocolate cake or the brownies or anything?"

Isaac shook his head.

"Chocolate chip cookies?"

Another head shake.

Scott sighed and finally agreed. "Red Velvet it is. Do we have to decorate them with icing?"

Isaac raised an eyebrow at him. "Well yeah, otherwise they wouldn't be cupcakes. They would be smooth muffins."

Hah. Smooth muffins. Scott couldn't help the snort that erupted from his nose.

Thankfully, he was saved from further comment by the dismissal bell. As students gathered their belongings and finished discussing their projects, the Home Economics teacher yelled out that they would be bringing their creations in throughout the week, starting tomorrow.

Having Home Economics as the last class of the day generally made Scott's life so much easier. Half the time, they would make something delicious that Scott could eat on the way home. He knew that if he'd had the class at any other point of the day, it would either ruin his lunch or ruin the next class for him. No, it was so much easier to make a mess while cooking and then get to go home.

Rather than go their separate ways, Isaac walked with Scott toward his locker. Scott didn't even mind.

"So," Scott started as he put in his locker combination. "You want to do this tonight? I'm off work and who knows if we'll get another chance."

"I was going to ask the same thing," Isaac commented.

"Cool. Well. That's settled."

Melissa McCall's initial reaction was to greet Scott and his friend in her usual manner which went along the lines of, "Ah, hello, Stiles."

Only this time she had to stop herself and smile and to Scott it looked like she was happy Scott was branching out with his friends. He had no idea if this was a good thing or not considering she'd once tried to ground him from Stiles. She probably didn't approve of his taste in friends.

"It's nice to see you, Isaac," Melissa corrected herself.

Isaac gave her a curt nod. "Hey Mrs. McCall."

"Please, call me Melissa."

Scott rolled his eyes and shoved Isaac away from his mother before this turned into a tea party. Isaac had a tendency to be overly polite to Scott's mother and that was just weird. "Mom we're busy, okay? We have homework to do."

Melissa gave him, 'the look' which used to strike fear in the heart of ten year old Scott but now just made him vaguely uncomfortable, like he'd forgotten to do the dishes. "Like actual homework this time?"

"Yes, I promise," Scott said quickly as he and Isaac retreated into the kitchen. He could feel his mother's eyes on him as he nonchalantly opened the fridge door and started pulling out things he remembered seeing on the list like milk and eggs. A stray thought hit him like lightning and he paused halfway into handing a stick of butter over to Isaac who now had his arms filled with ingredients "Wait, mom do we have red dye? Like a shit ton of red dye?"

"Language, young man," Melissa said automatically, like the mother robot she sometimes became. She instantly molded herself back into her beloved mother-like state and said in a sweeter tone, "No. I'll have to run to the store. What is this for?"

"I told you, mom; it's homework!" Scott nearly whined.

It was Isaac who handed Melissa the sheet of paper with the recipe on it. She barely even took a look at it before her face shone with understanding. "Ah. I see. Well. Let me go get these things for you real quick. Or should you be doing it? It's your homework."

Scott may have panicked a little. His mom did all the grocery shopping. "I don't even know where half those things are in the store!"

"Then figure it out," Melissa said matter-of-factly. She immediately disappeared for a second and came back with her purse. She pulled out her keys and a few bills from her wallet and held them up for Scott to grab. "Take the car. Have some money. Do your homework."

Once they were out the door, Isaac nudged Scott's side. "Your mom is awesome."

"I know, shut up."

Scott made a vow that night to never take his mother's trips to the grocery store for granted ever again. How was anyone supposed to find anything in one of those places? There were aisles upon aisles of just boxes and colors and prices and how did anyone keep it all organized? It wasn't that he'd never been in a grocery store before, it was more like he'd never had to navigate it himself—and especially not the baking aisle. The baking aisle was another nightmare all by itself.

Some genius decided that not all baking material had to be in the right place. The eggs were in one section of the store and the milk was in the other. On top of it all, they not only had to buy regular milk, but buttermilk as well. What recipe called for two kinds of milk, anyway? Clearly the red velvet in the cupcakes was for the devil.

It wasn't just the milk, either. They needed cake flour, which, apparently, was not the same thing as regular flour and twice as expensive. Scott knew they weren't going to use the whole box so he really hoped his mother was going to want more cupcakes or something in the future. Isaac insisted they use the exact type of flour the recipe needed, too, which rendered Scott's argument for all-purpose flour invalid.

Somehow, the two of them managed to make it out of the grocery store with all their limbs intact and only had to dive into a little bit of Scott's money. Food was getting more expensive, these days. Scott had no idea how high the prices had jumped.

The ride home seemed perfectly fine until Isaac decided to start brooding and filled the entire car with a depressing scent. Scott wanted to roll the windows down just to make himself feel better. It didn't help that being in a grocery store with thousands of food smells already tired him out. Just before he was about to ask Isaac what was wrong, Isaac beat him to the punch.

"So…. you sure you're okay with this?"

"With what?" Scott blinked.

"Being my partner."

Scott sighed. "Dude if I wasn't okay with it, I'd tell you right?"

"You could just be acting nice." Isaac's voice continued to sound unsure. His earlier words of 'I don't have anyone' echoed in Scott's ears. Did he still think that?

"What do you want me to say Isaac? I care enough about you that I don't want you to get hurt. I've seen a side of you that no one else has seen. Where are you getting the idea that I don't want to hang out with you?"

Isaac shrugged in his seat. "You're just a little off is all."

Was he? Scott felt absolutely normal. He scrambled for an answer. "Well… you're intimidating?"

Isaac gave him a small smirk. "You're not the person I really want to intimidate. Besides. You bested me in a werewolf fight already—on the ice rink, remember?"

Scott copied that same smirk. "You just voluntarily offered up memories of me kicking your ass?"

"I was a newborn. That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Scott erupted into sudden laughter and had to grip the steering wheel with two hands so he wouldn't crash into something and crush his mother's car like a Kleenex box. "I mean, you have an overpowering presence, I don't know. It's like you suck all the air from the room."

Scott could feel Isaac's eyes staring a hole into the side of his face. "Wow, Scott."

That penetrating stare lowered Scott's ability to drive and caused a flush to fill his cheeks. "I meant it as a compliment!"

When Isaac finally looked away, he did so with a little huff. "Some compliment."

Scott somehow felt like he'd accidentally let out a secret part of his soul that he didn't even know was there. Whatever strange moment had transpired between them had passed, but Scott still felt the residual energy from it. Like a spark. "Yeah whatever. Just get over the fact that I like hanging out with you even if we're making stupid cupcakes."

"They're red velvet," Isaac correctly, "And they're delicious, not stupid."

"I had no idea you liked cupcakes."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," He said quietly, his voice still a little sad, like maybe Scott still had a long way to go.

There wasn't much left to the drive home, but Scott still felt the need to break the silence with the radio just to drown out some of the leftover sadness still filling the car. As luck would have it, a Queen song came on the radio which immediately gave Scott steering wheel drum rights.

As he drummed, Scott took the chance to catch a glimpse of Isaac every so often. He wasn't drumming along, but he was smiling and a much more joyful scent began to permeate through the air. Scott counted that as a win.

Back at the McCall residence, both Scott and Isaac dump the new ingredients onto the counter. Rather than try to remember what he had at home already, Scott went ahead and bought everything they needed. All he had to do now was remember where the measuring cups and other cooking utensils were kept.

The poor recipe sheet had been folded and re-folded so many times that it was starting to tear so Isaac had the idea to tape it to a cabinet so that they wouldn't lose it. While he worked, Scott figured out how to pre-heat the oven after pressing every button imaginable.

As it turned out, they had some awesome teamwork. With their werewolf reflexes, they could dodge each other as they mixed two different portions of ingredients. Isaac took care of the dry ingredients because he wasn't afraid of handling the expensive flour and Scott placed himself in charge of the wet ingredients mostly because he wanted to see if he could crack an egg with just his grip.

When the time came to mix them all together, Scott held up the handheld mixer and waved it around in front of Isaac's face. "You wanna give it a shot? I'll pour in the dye."

Isaac took hold of the mixer with one hand and used the other to pour his dry ingredients slowly into Scott's bowl. He didn't even look at the recipe as he mixed the ingredients a little at a time like this was something he did on several occasions. Scott became a little lost in watching him and it wasn't until Isaac was nearly finished that he remembered he was supposed to start adding in the dye.

The recipe didn't call for just a few drops of red dye. It called for tablespoons of it. As Scott tried to measure it out, he practically used up the entire bottle.

When Scott finished, Isaac frowned down at the copious amount of red dye in the mixing bowl. "Dude."

"I know, right," Scott grinned. "Super bloody."

"Did you kill a gerbil for all that dye? Or guinea pig?" Isaac asked as the dye swirled itself into the concoction a bit more. "Or a rabbit?"

"Some vet I would be if I used the blood of guinea pigs to make cupcakes."

Isaac's voice rang out in a beautiful laughter that resonated throughout the kitchen. Upon hearing it, Scott realized he'd never heard Isaac laugh like that before. It was wonderful. He wanted to make Isaac laugh like that again and again. "Just go get the muffin tray," Isaac croaked out.

So while Isaac mixed, Scott dug through the cabinets to find the muffin tray and lined it with the muffin cups they'd bought. Just for good measure, he sprayed the muffins cups anyway because it was better to be safe than sorry. One could never put too much cooking spray on something, right?

Scott was just admiring his puddles of cooking spray when Isaac called from behind him, "You ready for the mixture?"

"Yeah, dude, lay it on me."

When Isaac came over to pour the batter, Scott naturally assumed his talent for mixing would carry over to his batter pouring skills, but he was horribly wrong. Each muffin cup held a different amount of batter, and large stripes of dark pink goo dripped in between the muffin holders. Scott figured there was more batter outside the tins than inside. The tins looked like a red dye disaster zone.

"Dude," Scott said, "We suck at this."

"No, you suck at this," Isaac retorted. His tone made it feel like he didn't actually mean it and it was more reflex than anything. "The batter is actually really good, try it."

Scott made a move to swipe his finger on some of the spilled batter but Isaac had already done that for him. Before Scott could form a coherent thought in his head, Isaac's finger was in front of his face, offering him a dollop of red velvet batter. Scott's startled mind had no idea how to process the information. Did he refuse it or just go with the flow?

Eventually, Scott figured 'fuck this' and he licked the velvet from Isaac's finger causing the curly haired wolf to shudder a little.

Both wolves froze like a deer had entered the room and they were sniffing it out. Scott broke the tension by licking his lips. "You're right. It's good."

Isaac snapped back as well, with a hasty, "I told you so." He took the cupcake tray from Scott and placed it in the over and set the timer. He navigated the buttons of Scott's stove with relative ease compared to Scott feeling like he was navigating the Starship Enterprise. Isaac leaned against the counter afterward, and folded his arms across his chest. "We have a half an hour or so to wait. Want to clean up?"

Scott's attention continued to focus on the now-empty bowl of batter. He still hadn't completely recovered from licking Isaac's finger but Isaac seemed to function normally. How could he be over it that quickly? The leftover batter than lined the bowl mocked him with its pinky texture and Scott's childhood conditioning demanded that he lick the bowl clean. Without another moment of hesitation, Scott grabbed the bowl and swiped his index finger along the side to eat some more batter. Under normal circumstances he would have worried about the raw eggs, but faster healing abilities tossed those worries out the window. He was on his fourth swipe when he caught Isaac staring.

"What? It's really good."

Isaac swallowed hard and pointed a bit with his own, less saliva and batter covered finger. "You have a bit on your lip."

"What, where? Here?" Scott tried licking his lips.

Isaac's hands twitched and he grunted out, "Let me get it," before reaching forward to swipe his thumb across Scott's upper lip to scrape off the remaining batter. He then brought the batter to his mouth and lapped it up, right in front of Scott with a satisfied grin. "Delicious." A spike of arousal went straight from Scott's lip to his groin. He could feel it saturate the air around him.

Scott could only gape open-mouthed at Isaac.

Isaac didn't even move his thumb from the general vicinity of his mouth. "What?"

Scott continued to stare at him.

Isaac narrowed his eyes. "If you keep staring like that, so help me, I will kiss you."

Before Scott could stop himself, he blurted out, "Okay."

"What?"

"Okay," Scott repeated. He couldn't back out of it, now. "I'm saying I'm okay with that."

Isaac's brow furrowed. "Hmm," he murmured. "I never actually pegged that kind of reaction from you. I figured I would get some kind of 'But Allison' remark."

Scott didn't want to have to explain himself again. "I told you, we broke up."

"But you could still have feelings for her."

"I could. But I could also have feelings for someone else."

"Are you saying…?"

"I have no idea what I'm saying, but there's so much arousal floating around in this kitchen right now that I don't think I have the capacity to care. I'll think about it later." Scott found he very much enjoyed this whole talking-before-he-thought-about it thing. Apparently he was more honest this way because at the moment, all he really wanted to do was find out what Isaac's lips tasted like.

"Yeah," Isaac grinned, making a point to sniff at the air. "You think about it later."

Scott started grinning. He couldn't help himself. His mouth just turned upward at the corners of its own accord and he couldn't stop it even if he tried. Isaac mimicked the action with a small shake of his head. "Scott. You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Being you. It's… attractive."

"And you're being intimidating again." Scott teased, although he didn't feel that upset or intimidated.

"Come here," Isaac growled and grabbed both sides of Scott's face and kissed him hard. Scott took a step back to keep his balance and ended up knocking the cabinets as he tried to kiss back with equal ferocity.

Isaac's hands moved around behind Scott's back enough that Scott couldn't really predict his next moves. At the moment, though, he was more caught up in the fact that he was kissing Isaac and actually enjoying himself as opposed to running away. He didn't even realize what it was that Isaac was doing until he felt a puff of air over his head and the unmistakable smell of flour filled his nose. When he opened his eyes, he felt like he'd stepped into a white powder cloud and Isaac had taken a step back to properly admire his flour covered masterpiece.

"The fuck?" A sudden thought that all of this was some elaborate prank flashed across Scott's mind, but the look on Isaac's face quickly shut down all of those thoughts. Scott brushed some of the flour from his hair over to Isaac's general direction. "I was really getting into it."

Isaac didn't even flinch at the shower of flour coming his way. "I couldn't help it. Honestly. It's the cliché thing to do when you're baking with the person you like."

"Ah," Scott said. He didn't miss that last part. Not at all. His face felt so hot he wondered if he could bake the cupcakes on it. "And that would be me."

"Yes."

"I'm okay with that," Scott decided. When the two of them came together for a second time, the only thing that could separate them was the baking timer.

The second the timer dinged, however, Isaac let out a stream of curses as he pulled away from Scott's swollen lips. Scott gave him a puzzled look.

"We were supposed to make the icing while we waited," Isaac explained.

"Hah!" Scott snorted. "Looks like we made smooth muffins after all."

Scisaac Red Velvet Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:

10 ounces cake flour (2.5 cups)

3 tbsps unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt (iodized is also fine)

1.5 cups granulated sugar

6 tbsps butter, softened

2 large eggs

1.25 cups nonfat buttermilk

2 tbsps red food coloring

1.5 tsp white vinegar

1.5 tsp vanilla extract

Cooking spray

FROSTING:

5 tbsps butter, softened

4 tsp nonfat buttermilk

1 (8 ounce) block cream cheese, softened

3.5 cups powdered sugar

1.25 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350

To prepare cupcakes: weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife.

Combine flour and next four ingredients into medium bowl, stirring with a whisk.

Place granulated sugar and butter in a large bowl, beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended.

Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add flour mixture and 1.25 cups buttermilk alternately to sugar mixture.

Place 24 paper muffin cup liners in muffin cups. Coat liners with cooking spray. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

To prepare frosting: beat 5 tbsps butter, 4 tsp buttermilk and cream cheese with a mixer at high speed until fluffy.

Gradually add powdered sugar. Beat until smooth

Add 1.25 tsp vanilla, beat well.

NOTE: frosting is optional! You can buy frosting already made or eat them smooth, like our pals!