Author: Sparkle Itamashii

Title: Helpless

Notes: Written with permission off of this prompt: neverafuckgiven dot tumblr dot com slash post/29370223386 after my best friend wouldn't leave me the hell alone about it because WHAT EVEN IS MY LIFE ANYMORE. THIS SHOW.

Chapter One

Stiles picked at the skin of his apple, peeling off sections and making a tiny pile of red scraps in the corner of his lunch tray. He wasn't in the mood for apples, but they were less sticky than oranges and he'd paid for a full lunch anyway. The night before he'd been up late, reading, researching. For once, it had nothing to do with the messed up circus of werewolves and kanimas and danger his world had become. For once it was about American government, about the branches of legislature and certain laws that had been passed, because he was still a student and he still had papers to write and turn in and get A's on so that he could sleep at night knowing his whole entire life was not crazy.

"My father says Gerard found a new strain of wolfsbane," Allison said, almost slamming her tray onto the table beside him. He took a moment to mourn the sense of normalcy he had been privy to for the extra three minutes it took his friends to purchase their lunches.

Scott was sliding in across from him, giving Stiles the 'save me, she's lost it' look. "He says it can make a werewolf helpless."

Stiles scoffed. "Isn't that kind of the point of all wolfsbane?"

Shrugging, Allison unfolded her napkin and picked up her plastic fork. It was going to be a tough fight against the goo that was supposed to be lasagna. "I got the feeling he meant something else," she told him. "Like that-" and here she glanced to where Lydia and Jackson sat, at the opposite end of their table, and lowered her voice. "Like that it made them... able to be controlled. Like you-know-who was."

Stiles sighed, took a bite of his apple, and glanced down the table at Jackson, who was paying none of them any mind. He was glad that the business with the kanima had been sorted. They weren't on speaking terms with Jackson anymore, at least they hadn't been for almost two months now, but it seemed like Lydia was talking him around. Coaxing him, Stiles thought, but the idea of anyone coaxing Jackson made his skin crawl.

"So, does he have it?" he asked, focusing back on Allison.

"Does who have what?" Isaac asked, slipping into the seat beside Scott. The two peered at one another's trays, traded items, brushed shoulders. It was weird, seeing them close, like real packmates. Stiles wasn't used to the affection the wolves all had for one another, not after all of the standoffish behavior, posturing, bickering.

"Allison's father told her that Gerard has found some mind-controlling wolfsbane," Scott said absently, earning him a Look from Allison.

"Well he didn't say that, exactly," she amended. "But he made it sound pretty bad. If he gets his hands on any of it... I mean, it's supposed to be extinct, because the werewolves launched some kind of crusade to destroy it all years ago..."

"But...?" Stiles asked, hearing the word she had left off of her sentence.

"But, he left on a plane last night, and dad thinks it's because he found where there might be some left."

"Geezus," Stiles said, shaking his head. Scott and Isaac both paled. "If he finds it..."

"Yeah," Allison agreed. She shot a worried glance to Scott, who tried to give her a smile in return. He looked like he was going to be sick. Controlled? By Gerard?

"Well... surely there's record of it somewhere, right?" Isaac pointed out, looking between Stiles and Allison. "Derek's started moving things from the station back to the house now that it's fixed. Books and things. Maybe there's something in one of those?"

Scott laughed, and then realized Isaac was being serious. "What, really? Are we just going to go pawing through our alpha's books?"

"With his help," Isaac said. "Of course."

"Oh." Scott looked guilty and turned his attention toward his plate. Of all the betas, he'd had the hardest time adjusting to trusting Derek, to including their alpha in their plans and ideas. "So... pack meeting at the station after school?"

Isaac and Scott both looked to Stiles, who realized Allison was also staring at him, and straightened up. "Uh, yeah," he said, clearing his throat. He really didn't understand why they looked to him for the plan. "Yeah you guys should probably... do that."

Frowning, Isaac and Scott exchanged glances and Isaac was silently elected to speak. "You'll be there, right?"

Stiles grimaced. "I could," he admitted. Not technically a lie. "Someone should check the books at the house. Most of the books are still at the station right?"

"Yeah," Isaac confirmed. "I guess that makes sense. You should take someone with you." At this, he cast a significant look at Scott.

"I think I'll be ok," Stiles told him. "If I take Scott, then I'll be taking Allison and if I'm taking both of them I may as well not take either of them. I'll come by the station when I'm through, it probably won't take long. How many books can Derek even fit into that little camaro?"

The answer, as it turned out, was a lot.

Stiles had let himself into the Hale house, knowing the others would have Derek occupied for at least a few hours at the station. After the truces had been called (although it was a tragedy to call it a truce, both sides had slunk away to lick their wounds after Jackson broke away from Gerard's control), Derek had finally set aside time to work on the house. However, even though they had finished most of the renovations a month ago, even though the rest of the pack was sleeping here, Derek was still avoiding the place.

Stiles knew why.

A part of him wanted to rub Derek's face in the truth, to make him face his past, to come back here and see that what had been, was gone. He wanted Derek to live in the present, to see the pack around him that would all but smother him in love if he could let go of his dark past.

But he knew better.

That sort of pushing would only cause Derek to push back, and Derek was much stronger.

Standing in one of the basement rooms, Stiles looked around at the boxes of books, the half-toppled pile smeared across the wooden table against the wall. The place smelled like dark. He wasn't sure what exactly smelling like dark entailed, but he felt that if he were to smell this particular combination anywhere else, he would think of dark. It was old stone and moss along the far wall, the musty books and bitter tang of metal.

Reaching over, he flicked on the light and began to move for the table. The flashlight clicked as he set it beside the books. The chair squeaked as he pulled it out, groaned as he sat in it, and he vowed to tell Derek he had to get new furniture. For a moment it was all he could do just to stare at the pile of books before him, daunted, but his drive for knowledge kicked in and he selected the top book to begin skimming.

Derek lifted his head as his pack trotted down the stairs, cocked an eyebrow as he noticed Scott and Allison were with them. He could practically smell the guilt rolling off of three of them, and he got to his feet to meet them. Allison scooted forward bravely, aware of how little Derek thought of her after her family and their involvement in making his life as miserable as humanly possible.

"Derek," she greeted evenly.

"Allison," he said, in such a way that asked the rest of the pack what the hell she was doing in his home. He noted the lack of the group's well-loved human, and his heartbeat spiked. "Is something wrong?"

"No!" Allison, Scott, and Isaac chimed in unison, earning them a look from Derek. "Well, yes," Allison continued alone, giving Scott and Isaac a glare. "It's my grandfather. He's been chasing some information, and took a flight last night after a lead. He thinks he's found a strain of wolfsbane that... would allow him to control you. Any of you," she said, motioning to all the wolves around her.

"Control us?" Derek asked.

"Like Jackson," Isaac told him.

"So you're..."

"Here to research," Scott supplied. "If he found record of it someplace, maybe one of your books has record of it too."

"And where is Stiles?" Derek asked, as aware as the rest of them that Stiles was their research guru.

"He's better at internet searching than any of us," Allison said evasively as Scott and Isaac shuffled nervously. "There's no internet here if you haven't noticed."

Derek's eyes narrowed. She wasn't lying; her heartbeat stayed level and steady. But she was hiding something, that much was evidenced by the guilty looks on the faces of his betas. "That's not what I asked."

Again, the guilty faces. Isaac broke first. "Some of the books are at the house," he said quickly, before Allison or Scott could get to him. He winced at Derek's look. "He said it would go faster if he went to look there and the rest of us looked here.

Scowling, Derek took a step forward, and the betas cringed. Scott and Allison held their ground, but he wasn't paying attention to them. They were not the core of his pack, not the ones he had turned, not the ones who were actually responsible for the sanctity of their home. "You let him?" he growled. "You weren't going to tell me." It wasn't a question.

No one answered.

Angry, Derek forced himself to close his eyes, count to ten. Stiles was in his house, alone, pawing through his stuff. He had somehow convinced his pack to hide information from him, something no one should be able to do. For a moment he warred with the desire to be angry and the desire to do what he knew was necessary. The threat Allison had brought to his door eventually won and he opened his eyes.

"You are all in trouble," he said carefully, with control. "But I will deal with you when I get back. You," he said, pointing severely at his three regulars. "Start reading. You," he said, pointing to Scott and Allison. "Go home. See what you can find online, see what you can find that your grandfather may have left behind."

"Where are you going?" Scott asked as Derek stalked past them, as if it was not completely obvious.

"I'm going to fetch your idiot of a best friend," he called back as he bounded up the stairs.

Almost two hours had passed and Stiles found he was staring blearily at the pages of a musty brown tomb with too many words in languages he didn't understand. There were no pictures in this one, and it seemed to be mostly a story, not an archive. He sighed and pushed it off the edge of the table. It landed with a loud clunk, tipped onto its side and scattered pages as the glue on the binding disintegrated. A second later his head clunked down on the table.

He didn't stay down long. There was work to be done, and one of these books could hold information and even though none of the last 43 books he'd been through had any useful information, he picked up number 44 and set it dutifully on the table before him.

That's when he realized... there were things in the pages of this book. Or rather, things pressed between the pages, and when he cracked it open, faded green leaves spilled onto the table around him. He blinked, opened the book fully to one page, and laid eyes on a sprig of wolfsbane. Behind it, drawings, notes. A field guide.

Jackpot.

Flipping back to the beginning, he began to carefully scan the pages, reading the descriptions of what each species of wolfsbane would do. All of them had deleterious effects on werewolves, but not all of them were 100% deadly. This one was the most common, causing confusion and disorientation; enough to allow a hunter to move in safely for a kill. That one was rare and would cause death just rubbed on the skin. Stiles was very careful not to touch the dried leaves of that one.

Two-thirds of the way through the guide, he found the plant he was looking for. Beneath the stalk the clean, neat script read:

Hybrid mutation. Human consumption heightens senses and raises body temperature. Prolonged use may cause skin to exude a scent which seems to mesmerize werewolves, rendering them helpless. Application to a werewolf will render them to a state of suggestibility. Control may be exerted by nearby humans. Studies suggest effects last several hours.

Its flowers were small and lavender, paled to almost white since they had dried. The leaves were small and almost heart shaped, springing straight from the stalk, about the size of his thumbnail. Beneath the description of it, there were two lines of Latin which Stiles didn't understand, but he didn't need to; he was sure had found the plant they were looking for. He scanned the notes again, but there was nothing more; one paragraph and a couple lines he couldn't read.

Lydia could read them, though, if he could get them to her. He pulled his phone from his pocket, snapped a picture of the text and sent it Lydia's way.

After a few moments of no response, Stiles decided yeah, that was probably a long shot and he would just take the phone to her the next day so that she would have to answer him.

So... then he should get this book to the station.

But he didn't move.

His eyes just kept tracing the words "heightened senses" over and over. Like a werewolf, he wondered. Hearing better, seeing better, smelling better? He didn't want to be a werewolf, didn't want to go through those crazy changes, but what if it was just for a little while? Just for a few hours, to know some of what Scott and Derek and the others could do...

One of the tiny, heart-shaped leaves slid with a whisper off of the page, onto the desk, rested against his thumb.

What if he could just... have a taste?

There were no werewolves here. No one he could "mesmerize" with the scent of it, no one that would suffer if he just tried a piece. At the worst he would suffer a few hallucinations like he had done at Lydia's birthday and while that wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, it was a thought he could stand. After all, there was a possibility that Gerard would find more of this plant, bring it back, use it against them, and become somehow more powerful. Stiles would be able to know what they were up against...

Before he could think too much about it, he picked up the leaf and pressed it onto his tongue.

He made a face. It was bitter and dry and he sucked on it for a few minutes before it began to soften, disintegrate. He found himself wishing he had brought some water; of course he couldn't have predicted he'd be ingesting who-knows-how-old, dried-up wolfsbane, but he should have expected the dust and the dry air. A few more minutes of sitting there wishing for something to happen resulted in nothing more than a mild headache and a will to go someplace that wasn't here.

He sighed.

Slowly, carefully, he closed the book, making sure that no leaves or flowers were left anywhere, and then pushed himself to his feet. At the motion, the world listed severely to the right and Stiles found himself upon the ground, ears ringing terribly. He could hear a horrible grinding noise, and the room brightened like someone had shone a floodlight into it.

And then all he could smell was Derek, and he knew it was Derek even if he didn't know how he knew that, and then everything went black.