Chapter Text
Stiles trudged up the stairs to his bedroom, trying not to feel sick at how quiet the house was now. After his father left on vacation, he enjoyed having the house to himself. It made him feel like an adult with the freedom to do whatever he wanted. But now it just felt incredibly lonely.
He paused when he got to the door. This was as far as he’d gotten earlier, before he ran off to find Derek and yell at him. He’d taken one look at Isaac’s stuffed wolf sitting on his bed and almost broke. Isaac was supposed to be sitting there with it, sleepily asking to hear one more page of his bedtime story. Or waiting eagerly for breakfast to be ready. Now Isaac would probably never set foot in his house again.
Stiles pushed open the door, keeping his eyes firmly pointed toward the floor. He could do this. Even though the talk with Derek hadn’t gone perfectly, it had gone better than he expected in some regards. At least he knew that Derek was feeling the same thing he was, even if he tried so hard not to show it. Having him at the house with him would’ve been nice, but Stiles had been prepared to raise Isaac alone if necessary. He could do this alone too. Stiles took a deep breath and lifted his head, immediately startling back when he realized he wasn’t actually alone.
“Isaac?” Stiles exclaimed, staring at him in shock. He was sitting on Stiles’ bed with his stuffed wolf, just like he’d imagined. Only this time, the wolf was dwarfed by Isaac’s giant frame, but he’d take what he could get.
“Hey Stiles,” Isaac replied awkwardly, fiddling with the toy in his lap.
“What- uh, what are you doing here?” Stiles asked, still frozen in his spot next to the door. It wasn’t like Isaac would disappear if he made any sudden moves, but honestly, anything was possible.
“I lived here for a while, didn’t I?” Isaac answered, glancing around the room.
“Y-yeah.”
“Although this bed seemed a lot bigger before.”
“Well, you were a lot- wait, what?” Stiles stuttered when his brain caught up to what Isaac said. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I remember.” Stiles felt his knees start to buckle and he leaned back against the wall before he could topple over.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just need a minute,” Stiles mumbled, willing his heart to go back to a healthier pace. With all the stress he’d gone through in this town in the past few months, he was going to need to add a few more medications to his prescription list. “How did this happen?”
“Oh, you know. Sometimes you go on a walk around town and run into an old lady who is actually a witch. Typical Beacon Hills.”
“You what?!” Stiles exclaimed, forgetting his earlier shock and rushing over to Isaac’s side. He grabbed him by the shoulders, checking every inch that he could see. “Are you okay? Did she hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” Isaac laughed quietly, letting Stiles perform his frantic once over. Stiles didn’t think a fully wolfed out Isaac would’ve been able to stop him from making sure he was really okay. His protective streak was as strong as ever. Once Stiles was certain that Isaac was healthy and whole, he finally let him go. But he stayed where he was on the bed next to him, feeling the closeness wouldn’t be as unwelcome as it might’ve been before.
“What happened? Where did you go after you left the clinic?”
“I walked around for a while and ended up at Scott’s. He told me more about what happened while- you know. I sort of freaked out and stormed out, then ran into the witch,” Isaac explained, twisting one of the stuffed wolf’s legs in his hands. “There was more talking, she hit me with a spell, then I woke up and came here.”
“Okay, we’re gonna need to work on including details in our stories, but we’ll hold off on that for now. How about we circle back to the witch hitting you with another spell!” Stiles demanded. If he got his hands on her, well he’d probably die, but not before giving her a piece of his mind.
“It was just a spell to give me my memories back.”
“Just a spell. She could’ve done anything to you!”
“I didn’t ask her to do it! Well, not exactly.”
“Explain,” Stiles groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. He didn’t care if Isaac was six, sixteen, or sixty. He was never letting him out of his sight again.
“She was talking about how this was all a lesson for Derek and that I was pretty much just caught up in it. And I’m happy for Derek if this really did help him.”
“But?”
“Scott made it sound like we were really a family,” Isaac said quietly, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ve never had that and I know I’ll never have it again, so it killed me to know that I got to experience real happiness at one point and wouldn’t get to remember it.”
“And so you asked the witch to change you back?”
“Not really, but I wouldn’t have fought it if that was my only option. It sounds really selfish when I say it out loud, since someone would’ve had to take care of me again, but-”
“Isaac, I was planning the rest of my life around being a teen father,” Stiles interrupted, stunning Isaac into silence. “I have no idea what I would’ve told my dad. The ages wouldn’t have made sense at all if I claimed you were my actual child. And even if I showed up with a baby, he probably wouldn’t have believed that I got a girl to have sex with me.”
“Why?”
“Well, I don’t exactly have the best luck with the ladies.”
“No, I mean, why would you have taken care of me? We weren’t even friends before this.”
“You weren’t friends with Scott when you stepped up to help with Jackson,” Stiles reminded him. “That was Derek’s responsibility, not yours.”
“Life has a way of making Derek’s problems everyone else’s responsibility. I was just his latest problem.”
“Hey, don’t talk about my kid like that,” Stiles warned. Isaac stared at him like he had two heads, before he snorted out a surprised laugh.
“That’s weird.”
“I probably shouldn’t say anything like that in front of other people. Impossible to explain,” Stiles agreed. Isaac nodded, turning his attention back to the stuffed wolf that was still in his lap. After the moment of levity, it seemed like Isaac’s mood had shifted more melancholic. “What’s wrong?” Isaac sighed, taking another minute before he replied.
“Now that I have my memories, I kind of wish I didn’t,” Isaac admitted, running his hand through his hair. “I thought it would be enough to know what it was like to be cared about, only if it was for a little bit. But now I want something I’ll never have and I think it’s worse.”
“What makes you think you’ll never have it?”
“Because Derek doesn’t see me that way. I’m just his Beta, not his family.”
“That’s not true. I was just with him and he’s a wreck,” Stiles argued. Wreck might’ve been an overexaggeration, but he was pretty emotional when it came to Derek standards. Stiles felt like it would be overstepping to tell Isaac what was said during their talk, since it would be better coming straight from the source, but he wasn’t going to let him think that Derek didn’t care about him.
“He bonded with a kid, not me. Even if it was real, I can’t live up to that. He won’t want me.”
“Isaac, Derek is one of the most emotionally stunted people I’ve ever met. Probably the most, if I’m being honest. Do you know how long it took him to look at me without murder in his eyes?”
“You mean it’s finally happened?” Isaac joked, although Stiles could tell his heart wasn’t really in it.
“Barely. But this past week we pretty much became coparents and we actually weren’t the worst at it.”
“So?”
“So, it takes time for Derek to open up to people. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care, it just means he didn’t know how to show it. Or want to, because that would make him vulnerable. He doesn’t like to talk about it, but he’s suffered a lot of losses in his life.”
“And now he’s lost his kid.”
“Oh, am I going crazy? Am I talking to a hallucination?” Stiles wondered, reaching his hand out and jostling Isaac by his shoulder. “Nope, his kid is still here.”
“Stop it,” Isaac grumbled, batting Stiles’ hand away with his toy wolf. “You know what I mean.”
“How about you think about it another way? Say you have a pet dog you adopted when it was older, but you get the chance to see them as a puppy.”
“Should I be offended by this analogy?”
“It’s not that you don’t love the dog you have, but you can appreciate getting a chance to see a version of them that you missed out on,” Stiles continued, ignoring Isaac’s possibly valid question. He was new at this, so he wasn’t going to completely nail this pseudo-paternal talk, but the point he was making still stood.
“But that all relies on the idea that Derek actually lo- cared about this me,” Isaac said, catching himself before he could say a particular word.
“I guess you’ll just have to ask him, since I haven’t been able to convince you,” Stiles replied sadly. “Sometimes it takes some big, crazy thing to happen for the truth to come out, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the truth already. With all the stuff we go through everyday, I don’t think Derek caring about you from the start is even close to the most far-fetched.”
“Maybe not compared to a kanima,” Isaac scoffed, rolling his eyes. He sighed, setting the stuffed wolf on the bed next to him. “I should probably go talk to him before he decides to skip town. Get it over with, right?”
“I don’t think he’s going anywhere. He was at the Hale house when I left him.”
“Right,” Isaac mumbled, wringing his hands a little in his lap and staring at them as if he was surprised they were there. “Um, if the talk doesn’t go well, or- I don’t know, do you think I could- if it’s not too much of a bother-”
“Isaac, you’ll always have a place here,” Stiles assured him. A little of the tension in Isaac’s shoulders melted away and he shot him a grateful smile. Isaac slowly stood up and stretched, as Stiles held himself back from insisting he stay. The protective instinct was still burning strong, especially since the witch was lurking around, but Isaac needed to have his talk with Derek. Stiles would be waiting in the wings, ready to support whoever needed it.
“Craziest week of my life,” Isaac muttered, making his way to the bedroom door. Before he could pass, Stiles grabbed his wrist, stopping him in his path.
“Could I ask you one more question? Then I swear I’ll let you go,” Stiles requested. Isaac gave him a quizzical look before nodding. “When does it feel like this happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, does it feel like you were just a kid for a week or did this sort of slot into your childhood memories?”
“It feels like I was a teenager, had a week as a little kid, then turned back into myself. Actual childhood memories are unchanged.”
“Holy shit. Oh, thank goodness,” Stiles choked out, not realizing the relief he’d feel at hearing those words. He buried his face in his hands as his emotions started bubbling up again. He was supposed to have cried himself out already.
“What’s going on?” Isaac asked, sounding concerned. Stiles felt him kneel down in front of him. So much for him being the supportive one.
“I was relieved when you didn’t remember, because I was worried that it would be a week in your real childhood. That you’d have a memory of being in a different house with different people, only to have to go back to your dad again. Of you having a safe week with us, only to be abandoned without any explanation,” Stiles explained, feeling sick even saying the words out loud. Isaac’s abuse hadn’t really been a thing he thought about, since he didn’t know about it or him until after it was over. And Isaac had always brushed it aside or made flippant remarks about it if it came up. But hearing about it from someone so small and defenseless made it so disturbingly real in a way he hadn’t let it before. “I’m sorry if I ever said anything to you that downplayed what happened.”
“Stiles, you didn’t know. To be honest, I didn’t really want anyone to know. And it’s not like you ever said anything worse than I’ve said myself. It’s something that happened to me and we can’t change it, at least without the help of a witch,” Isaac huffed, pulling Stiles’ hands away to reveal a probably red, splotchy face. “You stepped up when you didn’t need to and gave me the best week of childhood that I could’ve ever asked for. Even if things don’t work out with Derek the way I hope they do, what you’ve done for me doesn’t go away. So get rid of any guilt you feel because I don’t want it. You’ve gotta be the fun parent if Derek is gonna be the cranky one.”
“I’m the fun parent?” Stiles sniffled, feeling his mood start to brighten again a little. “But not like in an irresponsible way, right? I’ll play games with you and read you stories, but still make you eat your vegetables and do your homework. I’m no Disney dad.”
“Good luck getting me to do my homework,” Isaac snorted, standing up again. Stiles stood up as well, since the longer he sat still on the bed, the easier it would be to let his thoughts spiral down a dark path. Everyone was alive, most of them were happy or on the road toward being happy, and no one was trying to actively kill them. What more could he ask for?
“Oof!” Stiles grunted as the air was squeezed out of his lungs by a sudden hug. He barely had time to raise his arms to return it before Isaac was backing away, but it was enough. Isaac looked a bit embarrassed, but Stiles saw a small smile flit across his face before he walked out the door.
Stiles looked around his room again, remembering how just a half hour ago, the sight filled him with dread. But even though he was alone, it didn’t feel like it. Things were going to be different from now on, but he was looking forward to seeing how it would all turn out.