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Chapter Summary: Derek and Stiles are both nerds and also possibly get off on the wrong foot.

Trigger Warnings: I wasn't totally sure about the tags, so here's a quick disclaimer/warning about mental health issues. Stiles and Derek won't have the healthiest perspective on mental health in the first few chapters, and on getting the help they need. This is in no way representative of the proper approach to therapy, doctors, medication, hospitalization, etc. And while I don't want to give too much away, I have to emphasize that (obviously) Eichen House is not your average psychiatric hospital and isn't meant to represent the typical experience. However, it's not going to look much like what it does in canon, and it will have different secrets. Side note: Please don't ignore your mental health! Professional care is designed to help you live your life and get you the help you need, so take care of yourselves ❤️️

Rating: T for some violence and language, nothing crazy but please use discretion, etc. etc.

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Across a Certain Threshold

One - The Inaugural Meeting of the Eichen House Book Club

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On the day the new kid steals Derek's next book from the Eichen House library, Derek wakes with no memory of falling asleep.

But that's the funny thing about losing your memory. The simple concept of time becomes confusing. At some point, it's all just the same endless nightmare. It's here and now, with no before or after. No outside world, no homesickness—at least not anymore. Especially since Derek can't remember whether it's been three months, three years, or three decades since he's been locked up in here.

That's Eichen for you. It wears you down: a slow grind until you accept your place.

Eichen means echo, someone told him once. One of the other patients, back in Derek's first days here, before the others knew enough to be afraid of him. And an echo is all he is now. The same echo, day after day after day. Sometimes, Derek comes to and he's just lying on the thin mattress of his bed, staring up at the panelled ceiling of his room, like someone's flipped off a switch in his mind. Or he sleeps through the afternoon, because there's nothing else to do. Or he paces restlessly, prowling back and forth in front of the door to the hall as if he can summon someone to let him out, just through sheer focus. Or he does half a million pushups in the corner, hoping to force all that pent-up energy somewhere. Or he wakes from half-remembered dreams of dark, faceless creatures.

Now, though, there are faint noises outside in the hall, thin and muffled. Derek barely pauses his pacing. Don't get your hopes up, he tells himself firmly, even as longing surges in his chest. He thinks it's time, and it feels like time, but he can never be sure. There are no clocks in his room. And maybe the worst thing about this place is the insulation, really: even to his keen werewolf ears, he can only make out the barest sounds outside his closed door.

Still, he picks up the tattered copy of The Iliad from the bedside table, running his fingers along the worn edges as he winds his way to and fro around his bed.

Eventually, there's a scrape of a key in the lock, and the knob turns. Nurse Roberts leans inside the room, his coppery red hair a shock against the white walls. The faint scent of cigarette smoke, probably lingering from his last break, wafts through the air. "Hale," the man barks gruffly. He meets Derek's scowl with a frown, then steps back to open the door fully. "It's your hour. I'll get you when it's done."

Derek's swept past Roberts almost before he's gotten out the last word. There's only an hour, there's only ever one hour, and he's so sick of his room he could die.

The rest of Eichen isn't much to look at either, but it's something different from the walls in his room. And that's something, at least.

For just one hour a day—eleven to noon, on the dot—Derek's free to wander the building as he chooses. The tight schedule is grueling for a werewolf, especially one accustomed to prowling a territory as massive as the Hale Preserve.

Partway to the common lounge, he makes a conscious effort to slow his steps, to calm his heart rate. Pauses to run his hand through his hair. All the desperate, frantic energy that builds up while he waits to be let out of his room each day—that's exactly what he can't show. Not if he wants the powers-that-be to change his schedule, to trust him with more free time.

Not if he wants them to think he's normal. If they ever will. A wave of weariness washes over him. He quashes it fast, mostly because there are better times to have a mental breakdown. Better times, when he's not free for one glorious hour of the day.

Well, maybe "glorious" is too strong a word.

The common lounge seems to stretch almost as far as Derek's old house on the preserve, with low-slung ceilings and the kind of actual antique decorations the Hales had thrown out long ago. Patchy but comfortable sofas are arranged in clusters, with the occasional throw pillow bearing stupid motivational phrases like Dream big and Happiness is a choice. There's a couple televisions on the wall, and a piano in the corner. Everything's done up in old, dark wood, probably a traditional choice from the '50s. In Derek's opinion, it makes it all look like the somber interior of a funeral home.

At this hour, most of the other patients are hanging out in here, playing cards on the sofas or squabbling with each other. A blonde girl sobs in the corner while a nurse looks on in exasperation. On a coffee table, a middle-aged man curls up in a ball for a nap.

So, pretty par for the course.

Derek keeps to the edges of the room, pacing along the walls a little. Even after n amount of time here, he doesn't really know anyone, at least not personally. Even in this house of misfits and loners, Derek is always on the fringes.

Some of the other patients know him, though. They give him a side-eye as he passes, and he occasionally catches whispers like "Look, the runner's at it again," or "Clockwork, isn't it, Fran?"

He can feel the growl building deep in his stomach, like it's just a matter of time before he drops his fangs and claws—but that's the other reason he paces through Eichen so fast. If he focuses on moving, there's no time to engage with anyone. There's nothing and no one for his rage to latch onto, and by the time he's heard the whispers he's already halfway across the room.

It feels good to stretch his legs, to pace—no running allowed, he's been firmly told. So he paces around the room, and past one of the med stations, and around the cafeteria.

A part of him, somewhere deep down, is always keeping an eye out for the woods in the dingy walls, like he might round the corner to find trees in the distance. Like some kind of lunatic. He's on the hunt for a single note of birdsong, for a faint breeze, for something green. But the only green thing here is the tiny succulent he sees on Dr. Alsina's desk once a week, and he's pretty sure it's plastic.

As he rounds the corner near the media room, he has just enough time to catch a flash of dark hair before slamming headlong into someone. It all happens fast, but in the end he's still standing, only stumbling back a bit as if blown by sudden gust of wind, and a girl's sprawled in front of him on the floor. It's so fast he can't keep the snarl off his face, though he manages at the last second to keep his fangs back, fighting against the irrational fury building in his chest. The girl's dark eyes widen in fear as she scrabbles back, terrified.

"Hey, be caref—" A guy steps out of the room, but this would-be-rescuer stops short at the sight of Derek, or at whatever expression's on Derek's face right now. "Oh."

Derek snarls at them. And then, realizing his hands are balled into fists, he consciously unclenches them. The Iliad is a little crushed, but the old book's seen worse.

The man, an older guy with knobbly elbows and gnarled hands, slowly bends over to help the girl up. "Okay, bud," he says to Derek, as one might talk to a wounded animal—and the patronizing tone just draws more of Derek's fury. "C'mon, Clem," he murmurs, and then, to Derek: "We're just movin' along."

Willing himself still, Derek lets the two skirt around him so he can compose himself enough to keep moving. Where did that come from? he wonders miserably as the rage seeps away.

Pretending to be normal is hard. Here in Eichen, at least. The slightest touch from anyone but pack sets him off these days. His wolf howls for them, for his family. For his dead.

"Ten-minute warning, Hale," Nurse Chen tells him boredly as he rounds the lounge again. She's keeping an eye on a pale-skinned lady who's muttering to herself in front of the window. "And don't think Dr. Alsina won't bring up all your outbursts at your one-on-one this week."

"I wasn't doing anything wrong," he protests, and it comes out in a growl.

"I'm just saying keep it together, kid," she replies, not bothering to look his way.

He snarls, thinks better of it, and sets out for the library. He doesn't have time to get in an argument with her, not with his last minutes of freedom slowly draining away.

The library here is one of Derek's only sources of consolation. Which is a sentence he definitely would have scoffed at just a few (weeks, months, years?) ago. But when you're stuck in the same room for days and days on end, always one second away from losing your shit, the only bit of world you can see is in the pages of a book. It's enough, at least, for Derek to keep from going actually out of his mind.

It's not really much of a selection, though. Compared to the other, more spacious rooms of the House, this one's more of a closet—if maybe a largish, walk-in one. It's longer than it is wide, with the two longer walls completely lined with books. The third has filing cabinets to document check-ins and check-outs, according to a sporadically enforced 24-hour-loan rule.

There's also a table and four chairs in the middle of the room, rarely used—but someone's here now. A new guy, one Derek can't remember seeing before. He only catches a glimpse of dark hair and a smattering of moles against pale skin before disregarding him entirely.

The books in here generally belong to one of three categories. There are classics, the sorts of things you definitely read in high school or college, and those probably take up about three-quarters of the shelf space. The second category is romance novels, the squat, brick-like ones you get for a dollar at a used book sale. Then there's the set of encyclopedias from 2005.

Not much of a selection, but Derek makes do.

He slots The Iliad into place on the shelf and notes the return in the files. The books are sorted alphabetically, and Derek's spent part of the last few hours deciding which one on his list to reread. He peers through the P section once, twice, three times.

There's a blank space where the book should be.

Derek lets out a low snarl. Practically no one ever checks out books here, and of course the one he's set on is gone. It's stupid to be this pissed, but all of a sudden the rage is just there. And he wonders who has it—one of the patients in the common lounge, probably, curled up around it on the couch.

Derek's not sure why the thought sets his blood to boiling. He rises, torn between choosing another book and hunting down whoever took it. And then as he stands, he suddenly sees it, right on the table. He recognizes one of the grotesque illustrations on the page: a dead man lying in darkness, hidden beneath the floorboards of a house.

The mole-speckled guy is staring up at him, either because of the low, frustrated growl still working its way out of his throat, or because Derek started staring first. "Uh...hi?" he says at last, his expression wary.

"I need that book," Derek replies through gritted teeth.

"Oh. Okay, but the thing is—I had it first, dude. It's a library, right? First come, first serve?"

A snarl breaks loose before Derek can help it, and he leans forward like he might actually lunge.

The guy shrinks back a little in his chair. He looks fearful for a second, and then just plain weary. "Actually, you know what? Here you go. Just, uh, don't eat me, okay?" He gingerly closes the book and holds it out to Derek, who swipes it from him. It's a comforting weight in Derek's hands, and he automatically thumbs the pages as he sweeps from the room.

"Okay. Wow. You're welcome, asshole," he hears the guy mutter to himself. But Derek's on a time limit, and the seconds are trickling away.

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As it turns out, Library Guy may literally be Satan.

Later, after Derek has dutifully popped his pills and Nurse Roberts has once again sealed him into his room (after which he spat the pills into the toilet), Derek settles onto his bed to flip open the book—only to find dogeared pages, underlined passages, and scrawled notes in the margins.

He snarls, and this time, in the privacy of his own room, he finally lets it out. The wolf springs out in a powerful rush, like it's been simmering just underneath his skin all this time, like he's been dragging it to heel on a leash that he's finally lost grip of. He growls and gnashes his fangs and rushes around the room, as if there's a threat.

But there's nothing. Just the white walls, the empty bathroom, his own unmade bed. It's been a long while since Derek's destroyed his entire room in a vicious rage (only twice, alright?), and he's not quite angry enough to do it again. Plus, he doesn't ever want to go through the hell of supplemental anger management therapy again.

When his wolf finally burns its anger out and settles down—some unknowable time later—he sinks tiredly back onto his bed.

One thing about surviving in Eichen is that everything's about habit. It's about knowing what's going to happen and when. It's about giving yourself something to look forward to. And he's been looking forward to this stupid book all day.

God, that's depressing, Derek thinks as he cracks open the book again. Classic lit is the only thing I have going for me right now.

Every couple of weeks, he cycles through most of the classics in the library, or at least all of his favorites. The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe is a good one, just because there's so much variety—murder mysteries, intensely gloomy poems, haunted houses.

Usually, it drags him in without effort. But today, he can only picture the wary, mole-studded face of the guy in the library. In the illustration, the raven perches on a nightstand. Drawn over it in pencil is a convincing doodle of a top hat and cane. "Jesus Christ," he groans, tossing the book onto his nightstand. "I'm gonna murder him."

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The following day, when Roberts comes to open the door to freedom (like Derek's an actual freaking wolf in a cage), he breaks a habit as old as time itself. He doesn't pace the halls.

Sure, he had only the barest bit of time to catch the guy's scent before—rich, and somehow earthy. And sure, it's been ages since he's done any tracking of any kind, usually deep in the forest of his home territory. But it all comes back to him as he hones in on the smell in the lounge, following it directly back to the library.

The kid seems utterly unsurprised to see him, his expression jumping from Oh, shit! to merely resigned in the space of a heartbeat.

It pisses Derek off. (But what doesn't these days?)

"What the hell is this?" Derek asks, dropping The Complete Tales on the table so he can thumb through its contents.

"Looks like the book you stole from me yesterday," the kid deadpans.

Derek narrowly manages to keep his fangs from coming out, because the last thing he needs is to be reported to Dr. Alsina for aggressive behavior (again). "No, this," he snarls, shoving the book across the table.

The guy leans over to look, and when he catches Derek's meaning, he does look mildly apologetic. "Ah, yeah, my bad." Derek grunts, unimpressed, and the guy continues: "It's just, my AP Lit teacher always makes us mark up a text when we're reading, so..yeah. She says it's how you become a more active reader, and for the exam at the end of the year we're gonna have to catch things really fast on the fly—themes and allusions and shit. So it's kind of a habit now. But I mean, it's only pencil. I used one of the ones from the filing drawers over there."

"That's a fucking top hat."

"I got bored."

Derek throws up his hands. "The pencils don't have erasers."

The kid's frowning, but it doesn't seem to be at Derek, exactly. "Yeah, about that. Seems weird, 'cause they're not worried about giving mental patients the sharp end of something, but they take away the soft part." He stabs his pencil forward, then shrugs.

Derek stares at him, the anger giving way to confusion and irritation as the kid begins twirling the pencil between his fingers, staring at it thoughtfully. "You have to stop," he orders. "They're not your books."

"Okay, dude," the kid says, sounding just as annoyed as Derek feels. "Whatever. It's not a big deal."

Feeling the wolf retreat at the slight victory, Derek turns away to the filing cabinet, intent on returning the book.

"Uh, so...can I have that? If you're done, I mean," the kid asks, jabbing his pencil toward the book. "I'm trying to keep up with school. We were starting 'Fall of the House of Usher' in class, and I don't wanna be lost when I go back. Plus Crime and Punishment is shaping up to be a real downer."

Derek turns slowly back to him. The guy pauses and slips the pencil under the table, like Derek might forget his sins as long as it's out of sight. He offers a sheepish grin. There's no reason Derek shouldn't give him the book. After a moment, Derek slides it across the table to him.

The guy accepts it gratefully. "By the way, what did you need it for?"

"It was next on my reading list."

"For...university?"

"Just because."

The kid raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Mkay."

Derek goes back to the filing cabinet, grabbing the clipboard and pencil. It is weird that they don't have erasers, he thinks abruptly, partway through signing out his next choice—and then he quashes the thought.

"So what's your favorite? Short story, I mean. In the book."

Derek grunts, rolling his eyes. Whoever this guy is, he's too new to realize that Derek isn't the kind of person you socialize with if you can help it.

There's a long silence, which the guy eventually fills with another question—though it's more hesitant this time. "Or...did you finish it?"

It's like he can't take the hint. "I always finish them," he growls in spite of himself. "I have a lot of time for it. I'm on 23/1."

"What's that?"

Derek glances over at him, sizing him up. "Are you new?" He's gotta be kind of young—high school, so at least two or three years younger than Derek. But the look Derek's getting in return is equally contemplative.

"Yeah. Only been here two days." His mouth twists unhappily at this, like he's eaten something sour.

A sudden flush of pity surges over Derek, who thinks of how much hope he'd had to kill in his first few days of being here—always waiting and expecting to be released at any moment. "Hm. Well, 23/1's when they lock you up because they can't be bothered to keep an eye on you full time. You're in your room twenty-three hours and out for one, and for that hour you have to stick to the common areas."

The kid's eyes are bulging. "Dude. That sounds terrible." Then his eyebrows bunch together, his expression growing suspicious. "And also maybe...illegal?"

Derek shrugs, though he's grateful that the first reaction isn't What did you do to deserve it?

"So you come here every day for a book," the guy says thoughtfully. "To pass the rest of the time."

Derek gives him a one-shouldered shrug. All the reminders of the passage of time have left him feeling antsy, so he grabs Hamlet, raises his eyebrows, and wordlessly heads to the door.

The abrupt departure takes the kid by surprise, and it takes a second for his words to catch up. "Nice to meet you too!" he blurts, exasperated. "I'm Stiles, by the way!" he shouts.

The hell is a Stiles? Derek thinks. But he's on a tight deadline, and he's not planning to let some weird fucking kid mess it up.

Even if it's probably the longest Derek's talked to anyone here without practically ripping their head off. Even if—growling included—it's the calmest Derek has felt in ages.

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A/N: Guys, I love spooky stuff. I couldn't get this idea out of my head, and I have it all planned out. So...if you enjoyed it, please drop me a line! Reviews mean everything to me ❤️️