Right, so if you squint there's some Stiles/Isaac, but that's up to you to envision really. If not, read it as a purely platonic thing. Again, this one is for Sean. . . .
It's like a push and pull in a thousand different directions. Everyone wants something, whether it's Scott wanting someone to vent to or Derek wanting research. Sometimes he thinks it's funny because maybe if they spoke to each other about things once in a while, they'd realise how thin they're forcing him to spread. He doesn't know how to explain that he doesn't really stretch this way, that one day he's just going to snap and break, recoiling against all of them in no doubt the most brutal way possible. Even if he did know the words though, he doesn't even think he'd say them. He'd probably just keep his mouth shut and work on through it, because if they didn't use him for this, if they didn't spread him thin then what would they all do? Where would they all be?
If he sits and thinks about it, he knows the answers to those questions. Scott would no doubt be dead in a bottom of a ditch somewhere and Derek would probably have ripped some unsuspecting idiot's throat out.
He has to watch out for everyone what feels like all the time. He has to be one step ahead. It's like a brutal game of chess, one where he's forced to keep moving the pieces even though he just wants to knock over the king, throw his hands up and shout that he's done. But see, that's the thing isn't it? It's never been about what he wants, that's the one thing nobody ever asks him. And okay, his Dad doesn't count, but maybe that's because he's too busy at work to even realise when Stiles is screaming underneath his skin.
His Dad wants reasonable things from him, wants him to lie less and to do well in school, to get into a good college. Except, the thing is that it's just more to add onto the list. Make sure Scott remains intact for another week. Make sure Derek doesn't get any more grouchy than usual. Make sure Jackson isn't trying to be especially amazing at lacrosse and blow the whole secret. Make sure relations with the Argents are still amicable.
Do this. Do that. Don't complain at all.
It's a routine, repetitive and tedious, but something that he does never the less. Maybe because even if it's not easy, it something he knows how to do. Or maybe it's that he doesn't know how to break the circle, doesn't know how to find the words he wants to say or how to make everyone see that he's drowning here and maybe quite possibly could do with someone to pay attention to him for once.
He knows they won't, but it's nice to wish.
The thing is though, everyone has that day. That one day of the year when they just quit even though they can't help it. Even if they don't want to, it's just that day when they don't know how to do any different, when they throw their hands up anyway and just tell the rest of the world to fuck off for twenty four hours. That's what his Dad does – albeit in the form of working as hard as possible and then getting shitfaced on Jack Daniels when he gets home so that he doesn't have to look Stiles in the eye, but still – and it's what Stiles does. Because the day he has to himself every year is that makes everything just hit home twice as strongly.
For some weird reason it isn't his mother's birthday that does it, or even the anniversary of the day she died. No, it's mother's day that really does him in. It's mother's day when he cracks and just wants to bury his head in the sand. Except he's never really liked how sand gets everywhere and there isn't any near him anyway, so instead he just goes for the option of switching his phone off and after stopping by the cemetery to visit his mum and leave her some flowers he drives. It's nowhere in particular and yet the same place every single time. A few miles out of town there's this lake that his mum used to take him to as a kid. They never actually went into the water, always just sat on the ground near to it.
Sometimes he thinks it makes it worse going back to this place, sometimes he's pretty damn sure that if he didn't force himself to recollect all the memories of this lake then the day would be easier on him. Except the pain is remembering is something he knows would be easier to endure than the agony of knowing he's forgotten something. That he's forgotten even a single detail about his mother and the days here.
He'd only been there about a half an hour before he noticed a figure out of the corner of his eye.
"What are you doing here?" he asks when Isaac sits down next to him on the hood of the Jeep, dragging a hand through his curls and looking nervous. He looks like he wants to say something, which means he wants to ask something, which isn't a thing that Stiles really has the patience for right then. Not on that day and not in that place.
Except right when he's getting ready to bite Isaac's head off, the guy just shrugs and offers him a watery sort of smile. "It's mother's day," he says in a voice that makes it obvious he thinks that should explain it all. And really it does. "Didn't think you'd want to be alone."
It's then that he holds up the bottle of vodka, like a peace offering and Stiles feels like an idiot for not realising immediately that Isaac knows exactly how he feels. He lost his mum as well. Stiles can't remember when, but he knows that he did. And it probably makes it worse that Stiles actually had a decent father to cling to for comfort whereas Isaac's locked him in a freezer in the basement to try and teach him a lesson.
"I can go if you do though," Isaac tells him, looking unsure and still looking nervous and he actually makes a move to stand when Stiles reaches out and grabs a hold of the vodka bottle, stopping him. Because he's sitting there and he's just waiting for the request, for more words to come that'll reveal what it is Isaac wants from him. He hasn't actually ever asked Stiles for a favour yet, but he always just thought it was a matter of time.
Yet, he can't see anything other than nervousness and blatant insecurity in Isaac's expression and he thinks huh, that's new and he doesn't really have the energy to think much past that. Because Isaac'll probably ask for something from him later on and knowing Stiles, he'll probably give it to him without a single complaint, but Stiles really isn't one to pass up free booze or company when he actually thinks he could use it the most.
So he smiles back at Isaac and leans back against the hood of the Jeep a little more, taking a swig of the alcohol and only wincing a little when it burns an acrid tasting path down his throat. He doesn't think he'll ever forget the openly happy look on Isaac's face he hands over the bottle and makes it more than clear with his smile that Isaac's welcome to stay.
Maybe Isaac'll ask for something from him tomorrow, maybe he won't, but Stiles thinks probably for this it'll feel less like he's being used and more like he's just returning the favour. He doesn't think that'd actually be so bad, not really.