Work Text:
The cemetery is cold at night, no matter the time of year. It could be the height of summer, in a heatwave, and Isaac would still be freezing his ass off digging holes in the middle of the night.
After the first month of working there, he’d gotten used to the odd breezes, creepy shadows, and neverending silence. Every time a tree branch brushes his arm now he doesn’t jump and prepare to run away. It’s a small improvement.
There’s not much for him to do most nights so he fills the time by doing homework and watching for any ‘suspicious loiterers.’ When he doesn’t feel like doing homework (when he’s more injured than normal) he sits and thinks.
He’s laying next to his homework tree and staring blankly at the stars when he hears feet padding softly around a few yards away. He blinks and focuses more closely on the noise, double-checking that it is in fact, trespassers. It’d be the first time he’s encountered any while on the job and he wasn’t sure what he was expected to do (his dad had given him the instructions way too long ago for him to remember proper ‘procedure.’ He’s probably supposed to call the cops or something.
He sits up, back cracking from how long he’d been laying on the grass. He doesn’t know who he’s expecting to see (grave robbers or necrophiles probably, not that they have a certain look to them). Instead, he sees Scott McCall and his idiot friend Stilinski. He wouldn’t put it past the latter to be a grave robber he’s got that weird vibe to him.
“What the fuck are you two doing here?” He asks as he stands up.
They both freeze in place and turn towards him slowly. They look like they got caught with their hands down their pants. Seriously, what did they think was going to happen.
“What are you doing here?” Stilinski asks, he’s obviously trying to turn the tables. It’s not going to work.
“I work here.” Isaac is standing in front of them now, a few feet away. Neither of them has moved.
“Oh…” They look really stupid right now. “We were… uh… just trying to…” Stilinski’s reputation of being a quick thinker is apparently highly embellished. “We were going… to… my mom’s grave!” Great, they were trying to guilt him into breaking the rules.
No matter what sob story they presented, it was not enough for him to take the blame with his father. He would not be getting punished for these doofuses.
Scott elbows Stilinski in the side and hisses, very loudly, “What? No, we weren’t. Your mom isn’t even buried here.”
The glare Stilinski sends him is enough to scare a tiny child.
Isaac stands there, staring at them, waiting for an actual response.
“We wanted to see if it was haunted like the cemetery in that one movie,” Scott says, and that clears a lot up.
“Okay, well you guys have to leave before I call the cops.” He knows Stilinski’s dad is the sheriff and he knows for a fact that Stilinski isn’t supposed to be here.
“Dude, could you give us like 10 minutes. Please…” Scott drags it out like that’ll convince him. They’re not friends, in fact, this is probably the longest conversation they’ve ever had. “No one’s gonna know.”
“I’m not risking it.” He pulls his phone out, and he knows he’s kind of being a douche but his dad is very, very, strict about the no trespassers rule. “Sorry,” he adds, to make him seem a little bit less harsh.
They leave with quick apologies after that, realizing he isn’t joking.
He kind of wishes they could stay. He might not know them very well or like them all that much, but it’d be better than sitting by himself surrounded by the dead bodies of old members of his community.
He doesn’t have many (or any, realistically) friends so he can’t even text anyone while he sits and guards a place that needs very little guarding. He’s way underqualified to be playing security guard but his dad refuses to hire anyone he has to pay unless it’s absolutely necessary.
So, he sits. Sometimes he digs his holes, sometimes he listens to music when he’s absolutely certain no one’s going to try and sneak in. It’s boring but at least he gets to escape his house for a couple of hours every night so that makes up for it.
He’s worn a groove into the grass where he usually sits, the grass permanently bent from his consistent weight in the same place every night. Working at least gives him an excuse when people ask about why he isn’t making any plans to hang out ever.
He gets to be alone, for better or for worse. It doesn’t eat at him. It doesn’t bother him when he eats alone. It doesn’t bother him when people he’s had classes with for years don’t know his name. It doesn’t. The less attention the better. As long as he is passing his classes nothing about school matters. He doesn’t tell anyone about the weird, concerned looks his teachers send him that are always ignored and the frequent trips to the nurse to “get that checked out.” If he pretends no one notices then he doesn’t have to address it. He can continue living in his childhood home with the pictures of his family surrounding him. That’s what’s most important in the end.
So, he works extra hard on his homework and studies any time he can while he waits for his shift to be over. He’s not sure if his father would appreciate the multitasking but his father approves of the results so he doesn’t mention how he uses his ‘free’ time. It’s not like his father ever asks anyway.
He has a routine, he wakes up, he goes to school, he avoids drawing any attention to himself, he comes home, he avoids his father without being obvious about it, he goes to work, he pretends he’s getting paid, he pretends everything is fine and normal and okay in his life. He studies and prays he does good on his next test, he goes home exhausted, he eats dinner, then he crashes. Rinse, repeat. It’s about as good as he could hope for with what he’s got.
It’s good enough to get him out of bed and away from his dad.