save me from my suffering.
characters: allison, isaac, others.

…

It all starts with a text she can't take back.

Because Allison can't take this; it's eating her alive and she can't sleep when she is in such stunning dissonance with her own body and he has to be able to help, he has to help her understand.

And it's entirely out of place but she needs Isaac like lifeblood.

…

text 2:07am
meet me in the school parking lot, NOW

…

There is nothing practical about her outfit, because even though she's wearing a baby doll nightgown and black ankle boots, she hyperventilates just to breathe, runs her nails over her sticky-sweat skin like it will slide off of her skeleton. Allison flips over in the driver's seat, craning her arms into the back to pull on the rumpled black sweater strewn across the seats in the back. She will drip and suffocate, but she will be decent, and maybe it will burn her unnatural fever out.

A knock on the window nearly sends her toppling across the seats and her heart is beating so loudly she thinks it will burst from her chest, but she focuses on her breathing (in and hold for five, four, three, two, one, and out) before she presses the security lock.

Isaac looks no less exhausted than she does; he all but collapses into the passenger seat of her car, dragging his legs inside and closing the door to slump against it. He is as hastily dressed as she is, red rings depressed beneath vivid blue eyes, tousled hair sticking up in several odd directions.

His head smears against the window and he doesn't immediately turn to her, doesn't stare at her and try to figure out what the hell she wants from him this early in the morning—it's cold, too cold, and he ran until his lungs burned and his skin flushed and his eyes glowed, but he's cold again.

Cold as ice.

Allison reaches for his hand and when she scratches her nails against his palm, squeezes it tight, the two of them shudder in unison.

So hot, so cold, so opposite.

"I can't take showers anymore," she digs the lacquered tips of her nails into his palms and it if bothers him, he doesn't say anything. His hands are cold and her skin is so clammy-hot that she doesn't want to let go. Part of her wants to wrap her arms around his waist and lean into his chest and cool down.

Isaac tilts his head away from the window to look at her and he is too tired to be just a teenage boy. "That sounds like a personal problem."

Allison sits up against the seat, turns her knees into the center to face him. Urgency grips her voice tight until it sounds strangled in its execution. "No, no it's not, Isaac. It's not my problem."

That gets his attention, frigid blue eyes glancing at her expectantly. Isaac doesn't say anything about how she still grips his hand, doesn't even ask her to get to the point already because now it's two-thirty.

"Ever since the night of the lunar eclipse, I've felt different—Deaton said that I would, but some of this isn't what I expected." Her fingers flex in the space between his and Isaac flexes his in return. "I got in the shower, Isaac, and the water was so hot and there was so much steam and the walls were so tight, like they were closing in—"

Her breath catches in her throat and Isaac knows that sensation, knows it because he lives it. His fingers close around her hand and he leans away from the window too, and it's through unfocused eyes that she can see his flannel pants and bare feet and grey shirt moving towards her.

Isaac pulls her from underneath the steering column, tosses her legs over the gap between them so her back is pressed against the window, and the chill of the glass snakes down her spine immediately. "Allison," he says, notices the way her eyes are wild and wonders if this is how he looked to her, trapped in the janitor's storage closet.

He doesn't touch her other than still clutching her hand, other than running his fingers down her bare legs slowly. "Allison, it's okay, you're okay," he stutters, squeezes her hand again.

She blinks rapidly. Stars dance in front of her eyes for a few moments and a knot settles in the back of her throat that feels too large to swallow, but somehow she does. Isaac is staring at her with those vibrant eyes of his, and she doesn't feel closed in anymore.

Allison tilts her head down and rests her chin on her chest. She knows this is all Isaac, this is his frantic breathing and rattling shame and quaking, nervous bones and limbs. But she doesn't see memories, she doesn't know anything other than the feeling and the fear that claws in the pit of her stomach. So maybe she needs him more than she knows.

He tilts across the tiny space and presses a kiss on her forehead, smooths his fingers down the messy curls of her sideswept bangs. "It gets easier, when you have something to hold on to." He squeezes her fingers slowly, thoughtfully.

Allison feels neither hot or cold anymore.