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The fight had been hard. Stiles hated witches. Properly actually hated them with all his heart and soul and magic. The only thing he hated more were druids because they made up for their lack of nature manipulating blasphemy by being sneaky little shits (yes this is about you deaton). This coven had been a mix of both. So Stiles was tired, annoyed and fed up but most of all he was concerned.
The fight had been hard. It had been easy right up until it wasn't. More than half of the 20 odd coven had been incapacitated by the wolves easily. They'd picked them off one by one over the course of the week, working in pairs just to be safe at Stiles insistence. The remaining witches had run when Stiles had shown the full extent of his magic, the pack driving them deeper into the forest so the proximity to the nemeton would give him a little boost. Even idiot witches that thought they could control the supernatural hell that Beacon Hills had become could feel the difference between learned magic and spark magic.
Down to the last 4, they bantered through the woods. Peter listing increasingly improbably worst case scenarios just to annoy Derek and Lydia and freak out Scott and Isaac. Allison was absently gliding through the trees and Erica and Boyd were avoiding her. The woods didn't hold many good memories for any of them. This is why Stiles never believed Peter when he claimed not to care. Stiles had been stretching out his magic spreading it thin to feel the hum of nature.
Their relaxed attitude is probably why they didn't notice the runic circle until they were literally stood on top of it. Right in the centre.
Issac had dropped first falling into Stiles who had rushed to catch him, unconscious before he hit the ground, quickly followed by Peter and Derek. Erica and Boyd were quick to fall as well and Stiles saw Scott and Alison on their knees before he succumbed as well. All he thought as the world faded away was that he hoped Lydia could pull something out of her ass here.
Stiles came to in someone's arms which wasn't all that surprising. Given his distinctly human speed and propensity for severe injury he was quite used to being carried around. However, normally he could look into the anxious face of Scott or the concerned lines of Derek or even sometimes the mildly annoyed aura of Peter and soothe the tension in their shoulders by cracking some inappropriate jokes and rambling about whatever was on his mind but he had no reference points to calm Issac who was, from the wild look in his eyes and the sharp clenching of his jaw, absolutely terrified. He made a single comment about the way Isaac's nails were almost ripping a hole in his shirt and immediately regretted it as Isaac's grip loosened to reveal an violent trembling.
As they made their way into Derek's loft, collapsing on to the rug into the middle of the living room floor, Stiles found himself being placed gently onto the couch on his back by Issac who knelt next to him, resolutely refusing to let go of Stiles hand, clutching it tightly like the lifeline of a man in prayer.
Stiles autonomy and ability of independent movement reliquished to him, he could start cataloguing events.
"Lydia!" Stiles called out to the room at large.
"What do you want, Stiles?" Lydia responded from the armchair nearby.
"What happened?"
"Witches did a spell. You guys became useless. I screamed. They collapsed. The end." Lydia sounded exhausted. Stiles wanted to ask for more but wasn't willing to rock that boat.
"You guys saw stuff right? I definitely saw something." Scott interjected from the floor.
"Mhm." Allison agreed.
Stiles remembered exactly what he saw. His father, stumbling into his bedroom drunk, blackout drunk, off his rocker in a way he'd promised to never be again. Now, his father had never been an abusive drunk, he always got so damn sad. It sometimes felt like he saved all his tears for the whiskey but there was a reason that depression and anger were both stages of grief. They never left eachother far behind and Stiles had always looked a little too much like his mother.
Stiles could see from Derek and Peter's faces exactly what they saw. Most of the time they looked nothing alike, Derek constantly trying to look more closed off than he actually was and Peter trying to manipulate everyone into believing he was more honest that any of them thought he was capable of being but there was one time where they looked the same and it was because they were seeing the same thing. Fire. The burning flesh and desperate screams. Betrayal, fear, panic. Overwhelming guilt marred both their faces. Derek may have brought Kate into their home but Peter had driven him to her.
If everyone was recalling their worst memories then... Stiles turned just enough to lock eyes with Boyd who had Erica caged in his arms in a way that made the normally vibrant girl look tiny. His eyes never left Stiles and it was clear that they would be concentrated in his direction for another while.
"Ok." Stiles announced to the room, "What did everyone see?" He wasn't expecting much but the radio silence was still jarring, especially accompanied by the painful squeeze Issac gave his arm.
"They weren't quite flashbacks," Stiles continued, "since I was definitely not a kid in mine and I should have been, especially for a memory like that." That got a wince from Scott and a teary questioning look from Issac who had definitely figured out what he was talking about. Something must have clicked for Scott because he jumped up, dragging Alison with him to the door.
"I'm just gonna, yeah, I'm gonna go check on my mom. Come on Ali, I'll drop you off at yours so you can see your dad."
"Yeah, thanks Scott." The two were out the door before anyone could protest.
"Alright, no way I'm sleeping in an armchair and definitely not in these clothes." Lydia muttered in disgust as she trudged her way to what Stiles assumed was a guest bedroom and it seemed Peter and his expensive taste agreed since he seemed to head down the hall not soon after.
"Your dad, you said to Scott, was he..." Issac started, not quite capable of looking Stiles in the eye.
"No! No, Issac. After my mom died, he, uh, didn't cope well. It never got that far but he wasn't, uh, quiet, in his grief. Especially after a couple of fingers or whiskey." Stiles had talked this topic to death with Scott and Melissa, with his dad's deputies, all mandated reporters, all desperate not to be. Issac had clearly never opened up even this much before.
"Oh, yeah, that, that's good." Issac coughed "You'd tell me yeah. I'm good at listening."
"Don't worry 'bout me, kiddo. I'm alright." Stiles pat Isaac's shoulder, trying to break the tension between them but too exhausted to actually put in the work to address it.
Stiles lay back, untensing his muscles one by one, mentally examining himself for injuries. The tell tale sounds of one of the bathroom doors unlocking pushed him to hoist himself up intent on throwing himself over the back of the couch and on to the path of the bathroom.
A thick arm engulfed his chest and slammed his back back down onto the soft surface, the whiplash knocking all thought from his brain. The ringing in his skull was accompanied by alarmed shouts from Erica and Boyd but more concerningly, a muffled whimper from Issac. Stiles squinted up to find Isaac's biceps tense with anxiety and the pearlescence of tears in his eyes.
"You can't go! You, you, you have to stay. No!" Issac was working himself into a thrashing panic, his breathing getting more erratic by the second.
Stiles sighed deeply and relaxed back down onto his back feeling the pressure on his chest lessen the less resistance he showed. Snaking his hands up Isaac's arm to tug at the sleeve of his shirt until the arm buckled, Stiles threaded his fingers into the boys short hair and tugged the rigid figure to lay his head on Stiles chest.
Fingers twisted and tugged at mud coated hair as knees and feet nudged the frozen teen up and onto the sofa to lay bodily on top of him.
"Mom." Stiles felt the lips move against his shirt but didn't acknowledge them. He'd leave Issac the dignity of not holding his trauma against him. Instead he shimmied and shifted until Isaac's face was tucked securely in between Stiles shoulder and jaw.
"Mom." Issac sounded almost content, it was quite sweet actually, if he wasn't twice Stiles size he would be sort of cute. As he threaded his fingers through Isaac's hair dislodging the worst of the dirt and debris he kneeded his palm into the base of Isaac's spine and felt a surprising amount of satisfaction in the puddle of soup that became of the mass of muscle on top of him.
"Mom?" This time Issac was unmistakeably clear, tilting his face to look up at Stiles so there was no mistaking who he was addressing. It was almost as loud as the violent snort Erica made from her place on the floor. Stiles shot a glare at her was accompanied by a noise of protest from Issac as Stiles' fist clenched in his hair.
"I'm sorry, Issac. Sorry baby, mom's here." Stiles brushing his lips across Isaac's muddied forehead seemed to do the trick as Isaac shuddered and his eyes slipped shut into a deep sleep. He found a soft kind of rhythm stroking Isaac's hair and humming tunelessly. He felt something deeply internal settle within himself as Erica nodded off to his tune and Boyd finally relaxed into the floor.
A teasing smirk and a blanket eclipsed his vision as Derek took surprising care in tucking a soft blanket around him and Issac.
"Mom, huh?"
"Shut up." Stiles was glad to tuck his face into Isaac's head as he blushed a gentle pink unsure if it was embarrassment at being called mom or the unfathomably intimate look Derek was shooting at him right now.
"Get some sleep Stiles. I'll call your dad and wake you in a couple hours." The back of Derek's knuckles brushed tentatively against the crown of Stiles head.
"Thanks Derek." Stiles sighed as his eyes slipped shut as well, eyes sore and tired but sleep eluding him completely. He wasn't quite ready to welcome the abyss of nightmares, too many horrors to choose from, too many to fear.
Just as Derek walked past the couch into the hall to get to making calls a hand shot out from under the blanket and messily clutched at Derek's fingers stopping him in his tracks.
"Dad. Stay." Stiles opened an eye to watch the dark red flush make it's way down Derek's neck. Stiles was going to have to do something nice for Issac when he woke up especially since Derek decided not to risk waking Issac up and settled on the floor next to them, fingers shifting to thread Isaac's fingers between Derek's to calm him. Derek, sensing he wouldn't be going anywhere soon, tipped his head onto Stiles other shoulder and melted into his free side.
Yeah, Stiles thought as he finally felt relaxed enough to get some actual sleep, he was going to make Issac something nice, pancakes. He'd make them all pancakes in the morning.