The first time happened by chance. An accident, one said; fate, said the other.
Well, the meeting had been an accident. But the side of his thumb brushing the other's face, a sudden jolt of, yes, anger and pain, but also peace and catharsis, the stutter-step of a lingering gaze—he wanted to call that an accident. He wouldn't let himself.
"I thought—I didn't know that works on people," he'd said.
"It doesn't," Scott had replied. Still, his fingers ghosted over the scrape on his cheek to check that it was still there.
Isaac shrugged and let the truth of it hang in the air, untouched by the drizzle falling around them. His shirt was already soaked through, but it was an exercise in delayed gratification. Stripping off the clinging fabric always felt like a renewal well-earned. The rain was the only reason he was there on the lacrosse field. He'd seen the steel-grey skies and started walking; that was fate.
The accident was Scott's desperate need for distraction and a guilty need to feel like he'd earned some of the improvements in his athletic performance through practice. He held onto the latter in a bid to forget the former. It almost worked.
The accident, too, was the water dripping in Scott's eyes and the mud slipping under his feet and his lacrosse stick, thrown in anger at the ground, rebounding skyward to return the strike, glancing off his cheek and knocking him down.
The second time happened by design.
"It's fate," says the heart, lub-dub, lub-dub. "It's fate, it's fate."
The rain beats with no pulse yet it, too, plays its part. It is fate, in a way. It is the instrument that brought them together and what else could such a thing be? Many things, perhaps, but always fate, as well. Its cool quench does little to sooth the furnace-flame of two hearts pounding a rhythm of destiny.
To one, the rain is a baptism—a truly heaven-sent renewal of the flesh and, maybe, of the soul. To the other, a veil to hide frustration and pain. Neither thought of it as a merging of earth and sky, of water and air—a mixing of elements—but a mixing of elements it was nevertheless.
Blood and sweat mixed makes hard work, so they say. A calloused thumb and a scraped cheek, tenderness. A werewolf's touch and the burden of pain makes for pain shared more equally between.
"A choice," breathes the other, and sighs, "an accident of chance."
Given the choice, still, he thinks, he'd press his thumb back against that cheek until the pain dissipated between them. He'd rest his finger on that jaw and slide his thumb over those lips. His other hand, perhaps, would grasp for a wrist and pull the other closer, closer still.
His mouth would form with care the name of his object of desire, that single syllable—not lonely for its isolation but independent, like a landmark. The name starts just behind the teeth, volleys to the back of the mouth, glides through the middle and comes to a stop right back where it began. This, he'd utter with his voice pitched low and imploring. In that moment, he'd need to know for sure. His lips would part in anticipation, but he'd need to know for sure.
There's always a choice, in his mind—but not this time. What sort of choice allows only one acceptable path? A choice nevertheless, maybe, but at the same time, one that was decided before it was offered.
Isaac sets his pencil down with a sigh before cracking first his knuckles and then his neck. The air smells like rain rolling in from the west. He feels pathetic staring down at the words on the page before him, but it's a feeling he's used to. Sometime after he lost his mother, he found the validation and permanence to be had in setting his thoughts on paper; he never allows himself to regret what he's written. It helps to see his words and emotions etched over countless blue lines. They feel more real that way.
Still, this feels like a new low. Neither attempt feels right. Both feel contrived and pointless.
A whisper on the periphery of his hearing tells him the rain has started to fall outside. Ignoring the niggling sensation that he's being phenomenally stupid, he pulls a sweatshirt over his head and steps out into the rain.
That much, at least, had been true-to-life when he wrote it down. He does love walking in the rain—even more so now that his werewolf metabolism keeps him reasonably warm. It used to be that it would soothe his scrapes and bruises and then chill him to the bone. Back then, he'd liked that the cold reminded him that it was forever stronger than whatever the heat of rage could throw at him.
Regardless, he reminds himself now, he's not psychic. That's one thing his werewolf powers don't cover. Maybe he can picture his feet carrying him to a pair of warm brown eyes, an adamant and passionate voice, a crooked smile, but that's wishful thinking. Right?
He can see the school now. In another minute he'll be able to see the lacrosse field. The empty lacrosse field, of course. Who would be out in the rain? No one, he thinks firmly, craning his neck to catch the first glimpse.
Indeed, no one is on the field. He stands there next to the bleachers for a long time, hands shoved in his pockets and head ducked. The chattering rain muffles his thoughts. He feels quiet.
After a while, he picks up his feet and they set him on a path home. Preoccupied, he doesn't bother to steer himself; he's walked this way hundreds of times. Late afternoon has slid into evening and the sky is growing steadily darker. He almost doesn't see the figure sitting on his stoop before he runs straight into it.
He seems to have run into an invisible lead fist straight to the gut, instead.
"Hey, Isaac."
"Hey, Scott. Uh, what's up?" His fists bury themselves deeper in his pockets. His eyes flick to Scott's cheek—no mark. Of course not. Of course.
Scott shrugs. "I don't know, I just... thought I'd check up on you."
"I'm fine," he says.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you are." He smiles and shrugs again. "Okay, truth is, I needed someone to talk to. It feels weird to say that, though. We haven't exactly been on the best of terms since Derek changed you."
"No, I guess not." That whole kanima business had been pretty messy. "Um. Do you want to go inside, out of the rain?"
"I'm okay. I don't want to track in mud. You don't mind, do you?"
"Nah," Isaac answers. "I like being out in the rain."
He sits down on the steps next to Scott. The smell of warm, wet cement is on the air. Isaac hunches forward, rests his forearms on his knees, and studies the cracked sidewalk.
"So, what brings you here?" he asks. "Isn't Stiles usually your go-to guy?"
"Stiles and his dad are super busy trying to sort out the local police branch. After all the cops that died, and then Jackson dying-but-not-really, and what happened to Allison's grandpa... it's a mess. Plus I think he's sick of me telling him about my... you know, problems."
"Werewolf problems?"
"Yeah. And girl problems. A totally different sort of problem, you know, but I think he's hearing about Allison, too."
"Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise?"
"She broke up with me," Scott says shortly. "After all this time and trouble, she just broke up with me. I don't blame her, but it's still... it's still frustrating, and it still hurts. I wish we could be together but I know it's not that simple. Nothing ever is anymore."
"That's rough, buddy." Isaac bites his tongue as soon as the words are out of his mouth and hopes desperately Scott doesn't—
"Did you just quote Avatar at me?" Scott asks with a laugh.
"Sorry," he says, smiling. "At least she didn't turn into the moon?"
"I don't know how much it'd change. We werewolves have a rocky relationship with the moon as it is."
"That we do." The clouds near the horizon have begun to show tinges of orange and pink, backlit by the setting sun.
Scott sighs. "At least my mom can stand to be in the same room with me now, but she still refuses to talk about 'the... werewolf thing,' as she calls it."
"She'll come around."
"You think so?"
"Yeah, of course. She's your mom. She loves you. Once it hits her that 'the werewolf thing' isn't going away..." Isaac shrugs.
"In the meantime, you can focus on those two classes you're failing." Isaac nudges Scott with his elbow. "I can't carve a place out for you on the field every game, you know."
"Ugh, why'd you have to remind me?" Scott sighs and gets to his feet. "No time like the present, I suppose. I won't have to worry about Allison or my werewolf problems if my mom kills me for failing school. I should get going."
But he remains standing for a few moments, simply staring out at the welling darkness. Then he turns to Isaac.
"You really live here by yourself?" he asks, concern in his eyes.
"Yeah. It's not so bad. I got a little money from life insurance... and the cemetery kept me hired on, so I still have a little income."
"Doesn't it get lonely?"
"That's what my pack is for, Mr Lone Wolf. What about you?" Isaac stands and cocks his head in his signature style.
Scott smiles. "Thanks. For listening. I'll see you later."
Isaac offers his hand. Scott grabs it, pulls him closer, and squeezes him in a hug. Then he's gone. Isaac is left wondering if that brief moment of fear spilling into him had been imagined.
"Dr Deaton... does that trick to take away pain work on people?"
A simple enough question.
So the next time Scott shows up on his front steps, Isaac just says, "Tell me what you're afraid of."