Sherriff Stilinski was very familiar with hospital rooms, thanks to both Stiles' injuries when he was first found in the woods as a baby, and Claudia's illness years later. Despite that, and Dr. Mendoza's warnings, his stomach still clenched tightly as he walked into Stiles' hospital room, taking in the unconscious teenager lying on the bed, his skin unnaturally pale against the white sheets and blankets, tubes and monitors connected to his thin body.
The most frightening part, however, wasn't how ill Stiles looked, but the fact that he wasn't moving. Ever since the Sherriff first remembered seeing Stiles conscious all those years ago, the boy had rarely been still, even before he'd truly begun to relax around Claudia and the Sherriff as the memories of the abuse he'd suffered at the hands of those who had abducted him begun to fade from his young mind.
Stiles had always seemed to be a whirlwind of activity, and yet, here he was, motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest, the oxygen mask placed over his mouth fogging up gently with each exhale.
Oblivious to Dr. Mendoza as she quietly excused herself and ducked out of the room, Sherriff Stilinski walked further into the room, across to his son's bedside. He gazed over Stiles, his blue eyes filling with worry as he saw the heavy bandaging around Stiles wrists. It was fairly obvious that Stiles had only cut himself like than in his attempts to escape David Whittemore's office, but it was still a bit of a shock to see the white bandages that he so frequently saw whenever his job had taken him out to Eichen House around the wrists of his son.
Reaching out, Sheriff Stilinski very gently rested his hand on Stiles' arm, careful to avoid touching anywhere that looked even the slightest bit bruised.
"Hey, Buddy," he choked out, his throat tightening with emotion, "You're gonna be, ok, alright? They've got the Whittemore's in custody; they won't get you, not again. I'm so, so sorry, Stiles, I should have caught them before they got to you. I should have put the pieces together and made the connection between you and the Harper-Queen boys. You would have done it though, you would have it all worked out in minutes."
""You shouldn't blame yourself, John," Melissa offered gently, stepping up beside him and resting a supportive hand on his shoulder, "Stiles wouldn't blame you."
"He almost died, Mel," The Sherriff sobbed, his vision blurring from his tears, as he glanced at the IV line that was feeding a bag of blood directly into Stiles' bloodstream, "I almost lost him."
"Stiles is strong, he always has been. He'll bounce back, you'll see. Give him a few weeks and he'll be back to normal."
"I'll still lose him, Mel. He's one of the Harper-Queen twins. His biological family is going to want him back. I can't stop them from taking him. He'll be alive, and he'll be away from whatever shenanigans Derek Hale's dragged those teenagers into, and I'm happy about that, but he'll be on the other side of the country, and he will be with his real family. He doesn't need me anymore. Who am I kidding; he hasn't needed me in years."
The sharp stinging of the back of his head brought John out of his thoughts, and he realized that Melissa had just head slapped him in the back of the head, just like one of her favorite characters in that navy cop show that Melissa enjoyed watching when they were having a quiet night.
"John," she told him sternly, "Stiles still needs you…still loves you, no matter what, ok? There is no way Stiles would not consider you a part of his real family. Yes, he might have been born one of the Harper-Queen boys, but he became a Stilinski. Besides, from what you've told me since I got to the hospital tonight this means that Stiles and Jackson Whittemore are twin brothers. I only hope that their biological parents don't try and make them share a room or something."
John couldn't help the snort of laughter that left his mouth at the very suggestion of Stiles and Jackson Whittemore ever living in the same bedroom, "They'll kill each other; they wouldn't even survive one night."
ARROW/TEEN WOLF
Walking into a room of sleeping teenagers was not what Oliver had expected when he'd walked into the waiting room that Laurel had shown him into, Thea, Felicity and Diggle following behind him. A quick glance around the room told him that Jackson Whittemore, or rather, Robbie Harper-Queen, as he had been formerly known, was there, safe and sound and mysteriously healthy, but Roy wasn't there, for some reason.
Relief washed over Oliver as he took in the sight of his nephew, not even bothering to disguise the way he was staring. The teenager, one of the few in the room still awake, simply gave Oliver and the rest of the group an assessing look, lifting his eyebrow, as if challenging them. It was a gesture that Oliver remembered vividly from both Roy and Thea's teenaged years, and Oliver couldn't help but think about what the teenager had said to his adopted father, about how he'd never known genuine affection.
It felt as though history had repeated itself. Roy's teenaged years had been spent on the streets, orphaned and alone, while Thea had only been twelve when the Queen's Gambit had gone down, leaving Thea's father in all but blood dead (not that they'd knonw at that point that Malcolm was Thea's biological father), her mother devastated and busy running Queen Consolidated and Oliver himself stranded on the island and unable to help, leaving both of Robbie's biological parents angry and without anyone to show them any love.
Things would change now for the teenager, although Oliver wasn't naïve enough to think that it would be an easy transition for any of them.
Now, however, wasn't the time to start dealing with that. Oliver knew teenagers, both from his own teenaged years, and from his vigilante work, to know not to push too fast too soon. He followed Laurel to a cluster of seats at the opposite side of the room to where Robbie and his friends were sitting, slumped wearily in their seats or snoring softly, before he sat down.
Oliver took a moment to cast his eyes over the group, aware that Thea was doing the same from the other side of Laurel. Felicity and Diggle sat beside him, both of them trying to hide the curious looks they were giving the cluster of teenagers.
There were six teenagers, including Robbie, as well as a man who Oliver guessed was a little older, maybe in his early to mid twenties. His presence was a little confusing, but Oliver guessed from the protective looks he kept giving the teenagers (which reminded Oliver vividly of the looks he used to give Thea) that he was an older sibling of one of them.
"The girl with Robbie, her name is Lydia," Laurel told them in a hushed tone, "the blonde girl is named Erica, the tall boy with blonde hair is named Isaac, the boy that they're both leaning on is called Boyd, the other boy with dark hair is called Scott, and the older guy is Derek Hale. He and Scott were the ones who found Stiles…Alex."
"Where's Roy?" Thea asked quietly now that Laurel had broken the silence.
"The Sherriff took him to go and see Alex, he's only allowed two visitors at a time."
"Have you been and seen him?"
Lauren shook her head sympathetically, "No, but I was here when the doctor came and told the Sherriff about his injuries. He's lucky, so far no sign of permanent injury, although they'll know more when he wakes up."
Oliver swallowed the sick feeling that was rising in his throat at how close he'd come to losing one of his nephews. Thea's face lost little color it had, and she leaned into Laurel's side.
"At least Roy is with him," she offered reassuringly.
ARROW/TEEN WOLF
Roy could only sit in the chair at the unconscious teenager's bedside and watch as the kid's chest rose and fell gently with every breath he took. On the other side of the bed stat the Sherriff, and Roy was very aware of the older man's eyes on him.
"Thank-you, for letting me come in here with you," he said earnestly, "I know that…that we won't know anything official until the DNA samples come back, so you didn't have to let me see him."
Roy had been very careful not to let on that he already knew beyond a doubt that the unconscious boy in front of him was Alex. It would be too hard to explain how they would manage to get results from the DNA tests so soon without blowing Barry's cover, as well as risking the cover of everyone else. Just because Laurel and Sara's father was in the know, and had been ever since the night of the kidnapping, didn't mean that all police would be so accepting of it, and the Sherriff of Beacon hills was still, essentially, a stranger.
The Sherriff sighed and shrugged, his eyes flicking to Stiles' pale face, "I've always been worried about the day when somebody would come and claim him as their own. I had so many different scenarios in my head about how things would happen…what the hell happened that led to Derek Hale finding him in the woods that day. The only thing we were fairly confident on was that whoever dumped him out there to die…they were male. The way Stiles reacted towards guys in general for the first few months supported the suggestion that whoever his abuser was, it was male. We didn't know if it was his father, step father, or some other male member of the family."
"I wouldn't ever hurt either of my boys," Roy defended.
The Sherriff nodded understandingly, "I'm not saying that you did. We knew that whatever had happened to Alex, up until a couple of months before he'd been found, he'd been physically fine. No sign of any injuries or broken bones older than a few months. He was found in May, and abducted in February; we know it definitely wasn't you. Everything the doctors found had been inflicted after the abduction."
Roy solemnly nodded, relaxing into his seat. A part of him wanted to know what injuries had been inflicted on his infant son, how badly he'd been injured by those who had left him to die, alone in the woods, but there was a greater part of him that didn't want to know. It was obvious form the way the Sherriff spoke, from the expression on his face, that it had been bad…that it was probably a miracle that the little toddler had survived, even before he'd been abandoned.
A lengthy silence stretched out between the two men before Roy spoke again, hoping to bring the topic of discussion back onto a more pleasant subject, or at least, as pleasant as it could get when they were sitting at the bedside of the boy both of them considered their son.
"What's he like? What can you tell me about him?"
A smile spread on the Sherriff's face, "He's never still. Melissa and Claudia used to both say that he was a whirlwind of activity. In our home…Silence is the thing that scares me. It's when he's quiet that you know he's either hurting over something, or he's planning some new mischief, and that is the time to be careful around him. He acts like a joker, the comic relief, but everyone who knows him well...which is limited to about Scott, Melissa and Myself, know it's an act to hide how vulnerable he is. He doesn't trust people easily, and he keeps things bottled up, ignores them until they go away. He's smart, so much smarter than I think he even realizes, and he's loyal, and so damn protective of those he cares about. His favorite food is curly fries, he likes comic books and superhero movies and I honestly don't know what his favorite colour is, either red or blue."
Roy couldn't help but smile, "It sounds like you and your wife raised a great kid. Thank you…for looking after him so well. Even though I missed him more than I can describe over the years, I'm glad that at least you were there keeping him safe."
The Sherriff sniffed, tears shining in his eyes, "Thank you, Mr. Harper. That…that means a lot. I'm sorry you and your family had to go through the pain of having your boys taken away from you. I know Claudia would have felt the same."
"Call me Roy," Roy offered, "Everyone in the press and the media calls me Mr. Harper, and it just feels weird."
"Alright," the Sherriff nodded, "You can call me John then. Can I give you a little advice?"
"Sure, I think we're going to need it," Roy admitted honestly.
John chuckled, "Don't expect the boys to get on…at all. They've mutually hated each other since at least third grade, probably even earlier than that. I lost track of how many times Stiles referred to Jackson as Poopy-pants Whittemore when they were in elementary school, and Jackson isn't fond of Stiles either, despite the fact that, apparently, they're now in the same friend group. I think that probably had something to do with the girls though, what with Allison and Lydia being best friends, although at the same time I don't know, because the Argents left town as soon as school finished, and according to Danny Jackson has spent time with Scott and Stiles since then."
"Third grade…really?"
"I'm pretty sure it started earlier than that, but it escalated in third grade," John admitted, "Apparently Jackson made a comment about Scott's asthma, and Stiles gave him a blood nose in retaliation, not that it is always like that. Stiles has a hard time keeping his mouth shut, and he honestly has zero brain to mouth filter, so he'll have a verbal go at Jackson, and then Jackson retaliates physically. Pretty sure that up until the night of the Lacrosse final Jackson was responsible for at least eighty percent of the bruises Stiles got during lacrosse training. I spoke to their coach about it during their freshman year when, but there wasn't much he could do about it. I was going to pull him from the team, but Stiles begged me not to. It hadn't been so bad this year…either that, or Stiles just got a lot better at hiding it, which is actually far more likely considering what he's been like in the last few months."
""What's happened in the last few months?" Roy asked, his inner crime fighter sitting up in attention.
"You remember that whole thing in the waiting room? I'm fairly certain that was connected. The short story is that Stiles starts showing up at crime scenes, going out late at night in the Jeep, and not coming back until the early hours of the morning, or he texts and says he's spending the night at Scott's. Then there was an incident which involved Stiles and Scott kidnapping Jackson for a few hours and keeping him in the prisoner transport van, which, despite what I just said about Jackson and Stiles not getting on, was very out of the ordinary. I've tried to get Stiles to talk to me about it, but he closes off and stonewalls me, and I don't know when he got so good at lying, but I can't actually tell anymore when he's lying and when he's telling the truth. I've gotten to the point where I just automatically assume that he's lying. Maybe…maybe this was a good time for you guys to come into his life…give him someone else to talk to. Maybe it's because I'm the Sherriff, and he's scared I'll arrest him, or I don't know, but I don't know what to do anymore."
"Do you have any ideas on what it might be?" Roy asked seriously.
John shook his head, "My first thought was drugs, but I've never seen any sign of drug use on him, other than his prescribed adderal. I know Derek Hale's involved, probably is the leader, but I don't really want to go down to hard on him. The kid's had a shit life, and he's the sole reason that Stiles made it to his second birthday at all. He was only seven when he found Stiles out in the woods. He cuddled him to keep him warm and screamed for his parents. Stiles would have died from exposure within a few hours if Derek hadn't found him."
Roy thought of the silent, brooding man he'd seen in the waiting room, covered in Stiles' blood from carrying him into the hospital, until Melissa McCall had given him and Scott clean clothes to put on, loaned from some of the other hospital staff. He'd actually reminded Roy a little of himself in his own youth, trying to present a bad boy attitude to the world, but really, deep down, desperate for someone to give him some guidance. Of course, Roy knew that Derek could actually be dangerous, and had already led both of Roy's sons down the wrong path, but Roy wasn't about to pass judgment yet.
He would wait until he heard the explanation that would come when everyone was ready for that until he made up his mind.