Disclaimer: I don't own a thing. If I did, a certain She-wolf would not be dead on TW.
Isaac always found Boyd.
It was never the other way around. Isaac discovered that, much like he was before the bite, Boyd wouldn't seek anyone out if he didn't have to. At their cores, they were still loners, only now, they were loners together.
It was most evident, though, in Boyd.
Derek was never the warmest soul, but he was merciful. Kind even; Derek knew exactly who he was choosing to make a part of his pack. It was selfish and altruistic all at once; he chose people no one in the whole world would miss, chose people who wouldn't have a mother to answer to, like Scott, or a father that cared, like Stiles. Derek chose people he knew were a lot like him; who had no loose ends. And that way, they could, in some twisted fashion, become each other's family.
That being said, Derek made an effort to make it easy on them and Isaac could see it was hard on the Alpha. Derek Hale had spent years perfecting the art of seclusion, but Isaac, Erica, and Boyd joined the pack because they were sick of the trade; they wanted companionship. Conflicting agendas were obvious on training days when Derek bought take out and sat as far from them as possible. The gap made small talk awkward, so no one spoke at all. Derek caught on to his in-adverted making of awkward situations and stopped sitting so far away, but he stood all the time and it made Erica restless, but she even admitted that it was better than him sitting away from them like they were lepers. Derek never responded with the witty remarks Isaac was sure the older wolf was capable of, but his eyes would show amusement, and for them, it was enough.
Boyd was never the witty type. His humor, when rarely shown, was dry and sharp. Isaac appreciated it and the way, as a group, they really balanced on another. He figured, under normal circumstance, Boyd would have been his best friend.
But these weren't normal circumstances.
So Boyd was always quiet during meals and training and conversations even amongst the three betas. When Erica took a liking to him, Isaac could tell Boyd was terrified; he would be too, the girl was fierce. But Isaac, again, found himself in sheer appreciation of how this werewolf thing brought them together. He wouldn't trade anything for the memory of Boyd nearly shitting bricks when Erica asked Derek about mates and basically marked him with her eyes.
That's why Isaac sought him out.
It had been three days since the full moon, when he and Cora had nearly killed that teacher.
They hadn't talked about Erica.
"Boyd?"
He was standing on the charred, broken back porch of the Hale house, leaning against the beam. He didn't look at Isaac, but his change in body language showed he was listening.
"Can we talk?"
Boyd's eyes turned to Isaac. They were so haunted, so broken. Isaac remembered Erica's in that moment; alive and dancing and unafraid. She made Boyd's eyes like that once.
Isaac sat down on the stoop closer to Boyd, staring out into the trees.
Their relationship was built upon silent conversation. They had not known each other forever, but both were relatively easy to read, at least, to each other. They could just sit somewhere for hours and say nothing at all and be totally comfortable.
Isaac would relate that to Boyd, though, more than anything. Boyd's presence had a calming effect. That's what he meant before about them being balanced. Isaac had a kinder disposition and a readiness to do. Erica wasn't afraid to dirty her hands and had fire pumping through her veins; she was wild. Derek was stoic and almost icy in relation. And Boyd was the calm. He was the glue, the piece that fit right in the middle of all the polar opposites and pulled them together. Its why Isaac hated that, out of all of them, this happened to him.
"Boyd."
"Isaac."
Isaac looked up at Boyd, whose eyes were still trained on the sky, "can we talk about Erica?"
Her name caused an immediate shift in atmosphere. Isaac felt waves of emotion come off of Boyd; ranging from anger to deep sadness, to guilt. Isaac was even confronted with his own shame; of feeling like he didn't do enough.
"If you don't want to—"
"No", Boyd interrupted, cautiously making his way to the space beside Isaac, "we can talk. About Erica."
Isaac waited. Boyd was not a hasty man; he took his time with things and Isaac would respect it.
They sat in silence, a slow, ebbing, suffocating silence for what seemed like years before Boyd's voice sounded. "We were coming back. Erica—I knew that leaving wasn't the right idea. We needed you and Derek, whether she liked it or not. We were going to wait at the Hale house. We were almost there. And then they came; the pack of werewolves. Erica was terrified. We tried fighting back… but they were so strong", Boyd's head bowed, "they separated us. I couldn't protect her, Isaac".
Isaac chocked down the emotion that was thick in his chest. "None of us were doing a fine job and protecting on another, Boyd and that—they're an Alpha pack. You wouldn't win on your own."
Boyd's eyes were glossy and Isaac turned his head back towards the sky.
"I loved her, Isaac."
"We all did, Boyd—"
"Isaac", his eyes inescapable, "I loved her."
Isaac understood what that meant; the gravity of it. People like them weren't meant to love, or know what it was. Their circumstance prevented it; Boyd was nonexistent Isaac was alone. Derek was an orphan. Erica was a liability. They weren't the kind of people who fit "love" into their vocabulary. Until they met; they became pack and then it was possible.
The hard part was having the impossible become possible, and then taken away from you.
Isaac didn't know what to say or if words, in that moment, were necessary. The thing about being a loner, being alone, having an abusive father who never showed you a sliver of kindness or love, was the fact that you didn't know how to properly react to emotion.
They were silent again.
Then Boyd cried. He howled at the sky, releasing the pain of his loss to the wind. His resolve though, impressed Isaac. Boyd, even as a monster, wasn't a violent man and held onto that. He didn't take it out on the already broken house, like Isaac would have. Maybe he sympathized with it; it's broken, melted, holed-up walls. It's emptiness.
Isaac cried too. Maybe it was a pack thing, he didn't know, but he felt everything Boyd felt. Or maybe it wasn't a pack thing, maybe it as just them being human; grieving and mourning and understanding.
So that's what they did. They grieved, and when it subsided, sat beside each other.
"Isaac?"
"Yeah, Boyd?"
"Thank you."
"Sure."
Isaac always found Boyd.
Boyd knew now that he always would because, packs and grief and curses and werewolves aside, Boyd was Isaac's friend, his brother.
And they couldn't be alone if they had each other.
Was the ending weird? Was it "guy" enough? Re-wrote like, three times. Ahh. Written 2 AM so I apologize if it's not the most amazing thing in the world. Hope you enjoyed it, anyways. F&R
