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Stiles and Scott sat in an empty waiting room of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital deeply invested in a game of Uno. Scott was stuck there almost every night since his mom had to work double shifts since his dad left, and Stiles was often left sitting outside his mom's room alone when she and his dad needed to have "grownup talks". Eventually they came to the conclusion that it was much better to be alone in a hospital with somebody else rather than being actually alone, and the two had been inseparable since.
Stiles was just about to yell 'Uno!" and slap down his last card when his dad came bursting into the room.
"Stiles, I have to head out. There was a car accident downtown that they need me for. Your mother wants you, I'll hurry back as fast as I can!" the sheriff said walking backwards down the hall before turning and breaking into a jog.
Stiles put down his last card and stood up with a smile. "I win."
"You always win," Scott groaned, slamming his own deck down with a huff.
Stiles rolled his eyes. "When I get back maybe I'll let you win."
Scott stuck out his tongue playfully before picking up the cards and placing them back in the box. Stiles turned on his heel and began the walk down the long, clean hallway to the room his mom was in. There wasn't many people in the hospital this late other than the patients and the people who worked there, so an almost eery quiet rang through the hall. Once he reached her room, he turned the knob slowly and crept into the room in case she was sleeping (she was always sleeping these days). He walked carefully across the dark room and sat down in the light green chair near the head of his mom's hospital bed. Her eyes fluttered open, however, right after he sat down and she smiled weakly at the sight of her son.
"Hey," she said with a groggy voice. Claudia Stilinski held out her hand, which Stiles took immediately, and gently pulled her son closer till he was standing pressed up against her white bed. She let go of his hand and mustered all the energy she could to lift her arm and cup Stile's face with her hand. She ran her thumb gently over his cheek, taking in every bit of his appearance She saw his father in him everywhere. She knew he took more after herself, with his dark hair and honey colored eyes, but it was the little things that said John Stilinski in Stiles' appearance and movements that she saw, like his nose or the way he would run his hand over his forehead when he was nervous. She let her hand fall after she couldn't hold it up any long and grabbed his hand in her's again.
"Can you promise me something?" she asked slowly, tracing small circles over the back of her son's small hands.
It took everything Stiles' had not to break down and cry every time he saw his mom lately. This wasn't her. This body slowly dying in a hospital bed was the not the mom who would dance around the kitchen on Saturday mornings making pancakes and bacon, or the mom who knew special songs to sing that would make the monsters under his bed go away. She didn't deserve this. He didn't want to watch his mother wither away.
"Y-yes." he finally manage to choke out, swallowing the forming lump in his throat. He immediately plastered on his best smile when he saw his mom's eyes grow sad at the water slowly welling up in Stiles' eyes.
Claudia took a deep breath before continuing, "I need you... to promise me... that you and your father... will take... care of each other," there were quite a few long pauses in between every few words since she had to fight for the energy to say them.
Stiles quickly nodded and swore that they would be a team forever.
"I love you... so much," she said before taking a ragged breath.
Stiles sniffed and tightened his grip on his mother's hand, as if he was the only thing tying her to life and he could keep her alive by just holding on. "I love you too, mom."
Claudia's eyes slowly fell shut and her breaths were coming further and further in-between.
He doesn't remember her hand slowly letting go of his, or the dull sound of her heart monitor flat lining. The child psychologist his dad made him talk to said that his brain may have blacked out the memory to suppress the trauma. All he remembers is screaming. He thinks it was himself who screamed, but he wasn't sure because it sounded distant and his vision was starting to black out around the edges. He remembers a doctor and two nurses bursting through the door and pushing past him to get to his mother's lifeless form. He vaguely remembers Melissa McCall coming in almost right after that and guiding Stiles out of the room before he crumbled to the floor in the middle of the hall.
She wasn't supposed to die like that. His dad wasn't even there. They didn't get to say goodbye. He wasn't even sure if he heard him tell her that he loved her. What if she died never knowing how much Stiles really loved his mom?
Then suddenly he couldn't breathe. His throat felt like it was caving in, and his heart was beating out of his chest. The world around him seemed to move in a blur. A blur of hospital workers running into the room behind him and white walls that seemed to swim around the corner of his vision. He lifted his shaking hands over his heart and took fast, gasping breaths as his universe crumbled in around him.
Stiles Stilinski was only 8 when he had his first panic attack, in the middle of a hospital hallway.
Right after watching his mom die.
"Stiles. Stiles, listen to me ok? I need you to breath with me. Ready? Inhale.... exhale.... inhale.... exhale...." Melissa said as gently as she could while still being firm. She knew what a panic attack was, and thankfully how to deal with it. Later on he would think back to how the only plus side to his dad not being there was that he didn't have to watch the attack happen, and he wouldn't have to think his whole family was going to die in one night.
"Scott, he's going to be fine. You just need to back up or it will get worse!"
Every sound was echoing in Stiles' head. He didn't know where the voices were coming from and it made his head spin. Balling his knees up to his chest, he tucked his chin down and dug his fingernails into his short hair, desperate to feel something to tie him back to reality while wanting to get as far away from what was happening as possible.
He felt two soft hands on his knees as they gently unwound him from himself before a calming voice he was starting to recognize told him to try and hold his breath for two seconds before breathing out.
"One... two... breathe out, just like that, yeah. Ok, one... two... breathe in. Good job, keep doing breathing like that for me."
Finally after what seemed like forever Stiles no long felt like he was breathing out of a straw. While his heart still beat rather fast and his hands were still slightly shaky, the worst of the attack had past.
The chaos settled down since the doctor had called the time of death.
The tears started to fall and he balled up on himself again. Thats when Melissa picked up the small, fragile boy and carried his shaking figure to a chair back in the waiting room.
He heard Scott sit down next to him and Melissa whisper, "I have to call John, make sure he keeps breathing," before walking away, but Stiles didn't bother even trying to attempt to force his brain to remember how to make words to say anything. He simply leaned forward and held his head in his hands, trying to hold together his shattering mind.