The Lost Boy

Stiles doesn't really know why, but he draws Isaac as a lost boy.

There's some Peter Pan art that Stiles stumbles across when researching forest works, and the lost boys are far away in the images, walking through the trees, and he guesses that may have something to do with it. Just a random aesthetic that he has on his mind. Just another night where he's wondering what to draw to give himself a break from the flowers and wolves.

And he feels closer to Isaac than he has ever felt before, or ever felt was possible. So he's a little fond of the guy.

So Stiles sketches out a full scene of trees that take up the entire page, draws in bird nests and vague shapes of animals in the background that are skewed by bushes and large tree roots. He carves out a space for Isaac in the foreground by erasing a section of the scene for him to stand in.

Isaac wears a pelt over one shoulder, has multiple buckles around his hips that hold bottles and keys and leaves, and there's purposefully placed dirt on his face that highlight his cheekbones. He's holding a knapsack filled with who-knows-what, but peeking out of the bag are strips of fabric that sparkle. He's looking up to the left at a bird nest high in a tree, where a bird sits and stares back at him.

He's not smiling, but it looks peaceful. The erasure around Isaac makes it look like he glows. Maybe he just landed from a flight, and there's pixie dust still sticking to him.

Stiles spends two mornings and three evenings on the sketch, then linework, then random pops of color. He doesn't use the colored pencils for the entire drawing, but does shade the trees lightly with the side of his pencil.

In his opinion, it looks pretty fucking awesome. Not one thousand percent obvious that it's Isaac because of the clothing and dirt, but Stiles knows it is, so it makes him smile.

Stiles is overwhelmed looking at it, for just a moment. A rush of thankfulness crosses his shoulders to his chest, and he sighs.

Maybe it'll be Isaac's Christmas gift or something.

That would be cool.

The Simplicity, Realized

In the end, simplicity takes over anxiety. Sometimes things are lifted from your shoulders without you even trying to force it. Sometimes, maybe you were ready all along, and your actions put that notion forward, but your mind hasn't caught up yet.

Because when you're hiding something, it's silly to have it all around your room and kitchen. All someone has to do is walk in.

And walk in they did.

As a pack, too, all easy peasy, amble strolling, all conversational and light, all so normal and basic and every day that Stiles doesn't think twice to get them some sodas before joining them in his room, and Derek doesn't mention a damn thing because he's the only one not there yet, and Scott offered to help with the drinks which Stiles shoo'd away, which made Scott the last to get to the room.

Not that Stiles necessarily thought they were going to his room. He expected to find them in the living room, sprawled around the couch, because his room is pretty small compared to that. But even then, nothing occurred to him until he crossed the threshold of his room door and saw them all standing in the middle of the room, looking.

Looking at his walls. His bookshelves. His desk.

"Oh," he said, and couldn't help but incorporate the intrinsic fear and realization in that syllable. He set the soda's on his bed and they turned to him.

"Oh?" Lydia repeated, significantly less fearful than as he said it. "Oh, by the way guys, I'm an artist?" Her eyes were still roving over the collage of pictures above his desk.

"Oh, by the way, I draw...flowers?" Jackson smirked. But he wasn't looking at a drawing of flowers. He was looking at one of his tree drawings, really closely, narrowing his eyes at it. "Are you the new Rob Ross?"

"Bob Ross," Lydia corrected.

"Whatever. You really did this?"

"They look handmade," Erica said quietly from his bookshelf.

"Uh, well," Stiles starts, hands starting to shake, because something akin to his worst fear is being realized right fucking now.

But they talk over him.

Allison ooh's over the roses above his desk. "Stiles, this shading is so lovely!"

"I mean, he's definitely around trees enough," Jackson says, and it sounds like there should be a bite to it but he says it plainly, obviously distracted by the many drawings. His eyes slide to a new one, then go back to a new one as if noticing something new, and not able to help himself.

Erica has stayed standing in front of a mermaid drawing on his bookshelf this whole time. "Is this with pen?"

"Uhm," Stiles tries again, not comprehending the multitude of reactions he's receiving, mostly because they seem positive, and in his realistic imaginings he knew it would most likely be this way, but in his wildest imaginings, he didn't think -

"Oh, I love this one!" Allison points to a group drawing of all of them as chibi's. "Wait, is this us?"

And all of them, even Boyd and Isaac, who haven't said a thing yet, travel over to his wall left of the desk and start exclaiming over the adorable renditions of themselves.

And, you know, of course this is it. His wildest imaginings are the ones that corrupt his state of mind, the ones that make his hands clench on steering wheels and pray to stars, as if that might help anything. His wildest imaginings are the ones that he's been teaching himself to push away, and isn't this just such an absolute kick in the nuts that he's been correct this whole damn time, that his wildest imaginings are the epitome of beautiful nonsense. Something entertaining to look at, but nothing to live up to.

"What's going on?" Scott asks when he walks in. He takes a look at Stiles. "Dude, you good?"

"We're tiny!" Allison squeals about the drawing, and Scott looks pensive and glances back and forth from them to stiles.

"O-oh?" He asks and walks over. "Oh! Tiny, yeah. We're cute." But he doesn't say anything else, doesn't say, oh yeah! I've known the whole time! He's been doing this forever! Take a look under his fingernails, there's still some marker he couldn't wash off!

And Stiles sighs out shakily, because his wildest imaginings can absolutely go fuck themselves.

His friends - his pack - they love him.

The wave of horrendous anxiety leaves him in a rush, and is replaced with excitement.

"I - I have more, too, of you guys," Stiles twitches into movement and bounds over to his bookcase, almost barreling into Erica.

What happens next is this:

• Stiles is so riled with energy that he goes to pull out his folder of his earliest sketches, and instead of just the one, the five around it catch together, and all of Stiles' secrets avalanche to the floor and slip out of the folders.

• All of their memories, shaded and lined, is reflected back in his packs' eyes.

• Multiple exclamations are yelled and whispered, half of them fall to their knees, and the other half start asking questions.

• Stiles ignores the questions and points to Isaac's lost boy picture above his desk. He's feeling a lot of things and suddenly, desperately, wants it all out in the open. Stiles says, out of breath, heart pounding, smiling lopsided and so, absolutely, miraculously, beautifully, happy that he is himself, "Happy early Christmas."

Isaac yells, "Wait, what!? Is that me? That's me! Guys, that's me!"

And Boyd is laughing incredulously, sitting beside Erica and staring at a collage of sketches of the two of them. Allison is staring unnervingly close over the mermaid series of them all. Jackson found himself, of course, but hasn't yet said anything biting, and actually is looking appreciative. Lydia is trying to get all the papers back into respectable stacks so that she can shift through them all.

Scott stares at him above it all.

"You good?" He mouths, and Stiles' arms does what he thinks is a shrug, but more likely just a flail, and the astounded feeling of home and life and being happy with something starts building in the place between his heart and stomach, and grows, and grows, and he thinks, damn -

He may be a fool, he may be such a fool, for keeping this a secret, for thinking happiness should be concealed and thinking love has limits -

But he wouldn't do it differently, he knows, he knows this, because he did it at his pace and there's nothing more or less that he should have done, because instead of keeping the anxiety close to his heart for the rest of eternity, always wondering how it could have gone otherwise, instead it happened like this, when he wasn't caring as much about leaving marks on his hands or a thousand pens in his backpack -

Scott laughs a bit and Lydia has asked, like, three times if he really did these himself, and how did he hide it all, and how long has he been drawing -

And he sits down on the other side of the art avalanche and starts telling his story.

Derek shows up halfway through the tale of Stiles' super secret art journey. They all help him re-folder his art, and he allows everyone to keep one of his drawings from the pile, as long as it wasn't from one of his series.

Boyd keeps the drawing collage of his and Erica. Erica keeps the sketch of her with a mermaid tail that he did from behind while in class, one of his earliest ones.

Lydia keeps one of his sunflower collages, yellows and oranges vibrant against the white.

Isaac says his Christmas gift doesn't count, and Stiles is down with that, so he chooses a wolf drawing with the eyes colored in. "It just looks so intense," he says, staring closely at it.

Allison and Scott each take a different sketch of the two of them together. Jackson, surprisingly, takes the one of Lydia sitting on the world, and doesn't say a thing about it.

Derek - the absolute big dope that he is - says, "I have what I want," and kisses Stiles on the head.

Everyone gags unanimously.