There are so many other stories I should be working on instead of starting a new one (& I shouldn't be writing fanfiction at all, I should be working on original work!), but Teen Wolf has been kinda stuck on my brain for a while now, and this idea just wouldn't leave me alone, so yeah, here we are, with a new fic I shouldn't be starting.

Anyway, I posted some of this story on AO3, but decided to start posting it here as well. It's a Steter fic, but a rather innocent one in that there's no planned sex scenes because the story doesn't really call for it, and it takes place several months after Season 3B, but there will be flashbacks about those missed months (& the story completely ignores Season 4, aside from the inclusion of Liam Dunbar).

Warnings: This story features psychiatric hospitalization (but NOT Eichen House), as well as self-harm and mental instability in general.

So anyway, enjoy! (& to fans of my other WIPs, I'm sorry. I'm a bad person.)

Chapter One

On Sunday they serve macaroni casserole for lunch and Peter shows up for visitor's hour, which is weird because on Sundays they usually have soup and cold sandwiches for lunch, followed by meatloaf and assorted vegetables for dinner — though Stiles hasn't gotten as far as dinner, it's only 2 o'clock, so he can't be sure if the whole day's meal schedule is screwed up. He had already asked two different orderlies about it after the cafeteria lady's complete lack of interest in the change, but they had no explanation to offer, and he'd counted his fingers during Group Therapy every ten minutes just to be sure, because maybe he was still asleep and the casserole wasn't real.

It's not something that's really happened since they locked the nogitsune away, the whole waking dream thing, but these days, Stiles isn't really too sure of anything in his life. He knows that several months back, he certainly never would have expected to be spending his late teen years in a place like this — worrying about a damned meal-change of all things, as if it's some sort of Beacon Hills-like death omen and not just an alteration of the weekly menu.

It's stupid to be so thrown off by it; a part of him can at least acknowledge that much, but acknowledging the irrationality of your thoughts doesn't stop you from having those thoughts to begin with.

It's not even about the food is the thing, it's about the repetition. It's about the fact that for the entire three months that he's been here, they've been serving the same set of meals based on what day of the week it is. Mondays are cold sandwich wraps for lunch and a hot pasta dish for dinner, Tuesday is pizza and then chicken with a side of vegetables, Wednesday is incidentally taco day, which Stiles always thinks is a missed opportunity — but then again, maybe that's on purpose after one too many Taco Tuesday comments. Breakfast never changes day to day, it's always the same set of options, but for lunch and dinner—

"Structure settles the mind," his psychiatrist had told him about two weeks into his stay at Rosenbrook when he'd first noticed the repeated meals, "If it bothers you, let us know. We know it's not for everyone, and we're always willing to make alterations to fit each patient's needs."

Once upon a time, it probably would have bothered him — driven him up the wall crazy even — but as two weeks in the hospital had turned into three, Stiles had realized that the meal plan was the perfect way to keep track of the days.

Because sometimes the days bleed together, and just because he remembers yesterday being Saturday, doesn't mean that it's actually Sunday when he wakes up in the morning — at least, it's not Sunday until he sees soup and cold sandwiches for lunch.

Macaroni casserole isn't even anywhere on the entire week's menu.

Stiles counts out his fingers again, quietly, tapping each fingertip down onto the tabletop before him — all too aware of the heavy presence of the camera in the corner of the private visitor's room; a tiny blinking light indicating that it's on. The whole thing is somehow even more off-putting to Stiles than Peter Hale himself sitting across the table from him.

Seven. Eight.

Peter waits patiently; eyes tracking the movements of Stiles' hands.

Nine. Ten.

He stops.

All there. All present and accounted for. No more or less than there should be — though his nails have been bitten down to the quick, which he doesn't remember doing, but he must have.

Stiles purses his lips. He starts to count again.

"Something wrong?" Peter asks, his tone casual, light.

Stiles finally looks up, meeting Peter's gaze.

"Did you change the lunch menu?" he asks after a beat, because why the hell not? It is Peter Hale. Stiles wouldn't put anything past him.

Peter arches an eyebrow up in a typical Hale fashion, "Would it make you feel better if I said yes?"

Stiles pauses, contemplates.

"…Yeah."

Peter nods, as if that's a perfectly rational response, and says, "Then yes, I changed the lunch menu. What were they serving before?"

A kind of despondent exhaustion creeps in.

"Soup and cold sandwiches," Stiles tells him, his tone going dead.

"Ah, well that's exactly why I did it," Peter continues on, but Stiles is hardly listening at this point, "Soup's alright, but I'm not a cold sandwich fan."

It doesn't make him feel better. In fact, the whole thing is so ridiculously stupid that it almost seems to direct a magnifying glass on his present surroundings and the shitty circumstances that brought him here. The camera in the corner of the room — for your safety — has never felt more smothering. He's never really minded it so much with Peter, because, well, it's Peter — he wonders not to the first time how the man even got his name on Stiles' approved visitors list — but the camera's there for his visits with his dad and Scott and Lydia, with everyone.

Stiles' eyes slowly drift back down to the table.

He watches Peter's fingers drum quietly against the cover of a book he hadn't really paid any mind to before — the title Brave New World stares at him up-side-down from where he's sitting — and Stiles imagines claws sprouting out from those fingertips, turning that faint thump into a click. He doesn't even realize Peter's still talking to him until the man stops and the silence is sudden and startling.

Stiles' eyes snap up to meet the wolf's, taking in the analytical look Peter sends him, the look he always has — curious and calculating and intrigued — something that once would have set Stiles on edge, and yet now a small part of him finds comforting simply due to the fact that it's not a look of pity or restrained sorrow that he sees so frequently on the faces of his friends and his father when they come by to visit.

"Sorry," Stiles mutters, clearing his throat, "were you saying something?"

Peter leans back in his chair; the book abandoned on the table between them as he folds his arms across his chest, and he seems to take a moment to just examine Stiles. He doesn't speak until Stiles starts shifting restlessly at the silence.

"Rumor has it that you've been having some strange dreams," the man says.

"Are you even allowed to ask me about that?" Stiles says evasively, because any dream that he's having in this place is not one he'd like to give too much thought on. "And saying it's strange doesn't exactly narrow it down. They're all pretty strange, so you'll have to be more specific than that."

"I think you know what ones I'm talking about," Peter says.

He does know, because although there have been a number of different dreams that he's had over the past three months in this place — all of them terrible in their own special way — there's only one that's been stuck on repeat in his head each night for the past few weeks or so, and it's so reminiscent of the dreams he first started having when the nogitsune began its takeover of his body that Stiles had called Scott in a panic because it could be happening again.

Stiles had then called Lydia to tell her the same thing because as much as he loves his best friend, and despite Scott's reassurance that he would 'look into it,' he knows that Scott can get distracted by other things, and while he certainly doesn't blame Scott, Stiles also still remembers how Scott had dismissed his original concerns about losing time and writing Kira's name on the chalkboard as Stiles being sleep-deprived.

He knows that Scott means the best, but what if his friend just thought that Stiles was having what his psychiatrist would call a 'bad day'? No, it was better to call Lydia too.

He wonders which one of them told Peter.

"They're nothing," Stiles finally says, but his conviction is weak at best. They don't feel like nothing.

"Really? Well, I'd still like to hear about them," Peter says blithely, like he's simply asking Stiles about his day, and it reminds Stiles so much of his psychiatrist that he can't help but scowl.

It also raises a red flag in Stiles' mind, because why is Peter even here asking about this? It's true that the man has visited him plenty of times before — something that still baffles him as to why, though Stiles has stopped losing sleep over it after the fourth or fifth visit — but each of those times, Peter had just been stopping by to bring Stiles a book to read, and engage in pointless conversation, talking about things that never held much meaning to Stiles in that usual irritatingly enigmatic Peter Hale way that sometimes made Stiles think the man was up to something, but he could never figure out what.

Yet somehow this particular visit seems… different than all of that.

Different enough for Stiles to ask, "Is something going on?"

"Nothing that you need to concern yourself with," Peter assures him.

Which means that there's definitely something going on, something that concerns his dreams, and it suddenly occurs to Stiles that Sunday is usually a day where one of his friends visits him, not Peter. Peter always comes during the weekdays, when his dad is working or his friends are at school.

"Is everyone okay?" he's almost afraid to ask. He's a three hour drive from Beacon Hills now. Anything could have happened and he wouldn't even know. "My dad—"

"They're all fine," Peter tells him, "and everyone was very adamant about you staying out of it and focusing on getting better."

"Everyone except you," Stiles says, because it bears pointing out, "since you're here talking to me anyway."

"Yes, well," Peter hedges, "I've decided to use the whole 'leave Stiles out of it' rule as more of a guideline than anything. And anyway, I'm only here to hear about your dreams; I'd hardly call that 'getting involved.'"

"Um... Okay?" Stiles says slowly, eyes narrowed.

"Just tell me about your dreams," Peter says, "The ones involving the nemeton. Let me worry about the details."

"It's really just one dream," Stiles says, then stops himself, because Peter could very well be on the wrong side of whatever the hell is going on in Beacon Hills. This dream could be important somehow, and he feels like he should at least get some kind of verbal confirmation from Scott or Lydia before he goes telling Creeperwolf all about it.

"I don't think I should say any more," Stiles finally settles on.

He searches Peter's steely blue eyes from something; some kind of reaction, a flash of anger or irritation at not getting what he wants. Stiles sees nothing of the sort though, just the usual cool tones of the man's gaze.

His own light brown eyes drop back down to the table, "Can I have my book now?"

He glances at the title again. Brave New World. He vaguely remembers mention of it in school.

Peter chuckles.

"You still don't trust me, is that it?" he asks, amused. "Even after all the books I brought you?"

Stiles knows without even having to look up that the man is pouting. For an adult in his thirties, Peter pulls it off well, not that Stiles will ever let him know this, or even give any reaction at all to the man's antics.

He keeps his eyes on the table, and he wonders how much time Peter has left for his visit.

Peter sighs.

"Why don't I tell you what I already know about the dream," Peter offers. "What Lydia herself has divulged to me, because I really am here on official business and not for some 'nefarious scheme.'"

Stiles looks up, but says nothing. Peter seems to take it as agreement enough anyway.

"You're standing on the nemeton," Peter begins. "You said something about it not looking right."

Because it doesn't.

It doesn't look right.

Grey bleeding into white is scored on its surface, pale whorls spiraling along the nemeton's bark. There's something very much wrong with it.

Stiles' heart thuds in his chest.

"There are people surrounding you," he can hear Peter say.

"Hundreds of them," Stiles says, the words slipping out.

A good chunk of Beacon Hills' population, really, and the number keeps growing with each dream.

"They're facing away from you," Peter goes on, and Stiles finds himself nodding.

"In greyscale," Stiles mumbles.

"What?"

"The people on the outer edges," Stiles tells him. "They're colorless, black and white, like looking at an old photograph."

And the grey is growing, stretching inwards towards Stiles, towards the people he cares most about. They're standing there too. His dad, Melissa, Scott, Lydia, Derek, even Kira, who he had barely gotten the chance to know before all hell broke loose last time around – they're all standing the closest to the nemeton, their backs to him, staring out into the distance like everyone else.

And it's completely silent.

"You said it was bright," Peter says, drawing him back. "Past the outer edges, you said it was too bright to see."

"Yeah," Stiles breathes.

And last night, something had changed.

"They were holding an arm out," Stiles says, eyes snapping up to Peter.

The man gives him a questioning look, "An arm?"

"Last night, I – in the dream," Stiles says, "Everyone was holding their arm out in front of them."

He holds his own arm out to demonstrate; palm down, fingers limp, like he was being led by some invisible force.

"Which arm," Peter asks. "Right or left?"

Stiles shakes his head, "It was different for everyone."

Peter leans back in his chair, staring off into the middle-distance with a look of contemplation on his face. Stiles watches him and waits and shifts restlessly in his chair. His eyes dart up to the camera in the corner. He doesn't imagine there's much time left for the visit.

After a beat too long of silence, Stiles can't help but ask, "What do you think it means?"

"That, I'm still working on," Peter says, frowning, his brows furrowed. He stares at Stiles for a long moment, drums his fingers against the cover of the book. Eventually he shakes his head, coming to some unknown decision, and he slides the copy of Brave New World across the table to Stiles as he stands to leave.

Stiles grabs the man's sleeve as he passes him by, heading to the door, "Peter, wait!"

He falters under those cool blue eyes, but frustration wins out in the end. He honestly appreciates that Peter even told him anything at all — that he at least knows now that something's going on back home, since Scott and his dad apparently aren't going to tell him — but he just wishes Peter weren't so damn cryptic about it.

"What's going on back home?" he asks.

Peter smiles at him. He tugs his sleeve from Stiles' grasp and reaches down past him to tap two fingers against the cover of the book, "Enjoy your book. Let me know what you think the next time I see you."

And then he's gone, and a nurse is there in the man's place to walk Stiles back to the common area, where Stiles sits and wedges himself into the corner of one of the couches, with his face pressed against the cushions and his new book tucked up against his chest, because he's just so worried about what could be going on back home, and because Frozen is playing yet again on the room's one television and he can only take so many sing-along renditions of 'Let It Go' being belted out by the other patients.

Rec Therapy Group starts up an hour later, but he doesn't feel in the right mood to participate with the 'thinking positively' activity they've got going on for the day. The nurse in charge of the group sends him a sympathetic look though, and she lets him sit off quietly by himself. He decides to open the book Peter gave him and start reading.

"A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words,
CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield,
the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY…"

Dinner time rolls around at 5 o'clock like always and his group is led over to the dining hall. He ends up at the back of the line; orange plastic tray clutched tightly in his grasp and his book pinned under one arm. It takes about five minutes before he reaches the front and can be served. The cafeteria woman gives him a bland look, probably remembering him from earlier at lunch, and she slides the plate of food over onto his tray.

Chicken pot-pie with a small side-salad and a slice of cornbread.

Stiles stares down at the meal and his fingers itch.

TBC

Comments are always appreciated! Let me know what you think!