Archive of Our Own ^beta

Parrish sees officer Rudy marching to Derek, Derek who's just a kid in panic seeing his house pulled down to ruins. Because it doesn't matter how many times he had heard the story growing up, how prepared he was to what it entailed, the moment Parrish set foot in this Beacon Hills and saw with his own eyes the devastation he had only heard about, he sat down and howled for a family he never met. He can only imagine what this Derek, with no memory of the fire, must be feeling. And seeing it in his face so young is tearing Parrish apart.

He knows what officer Rudy is going to do now, he knows he's about to hear Derek scream in agony, and there's nothing he can do to help. Like when he walked into that schoolbus to remove the box from Jared's lap, knowing fully well the real bomb was back at the station, that it would kill deputy Dennis and hurt Derek. Sure, he healed, but he suffered a pain Parrish knew how to avoid, but couldn't do anything about it.

And now Derek’s screaming as officer Rudy tasers him, and all Parrish can do is wait a moment before intervening.

He really didn't realize how much all of this would affect him before he embarked in this adventure.

Back at the station he sits Derek down and calms him (it's weird calling him Derek in his own mind, but it helps him stay better in character and keep his distance easier, than if he would refer to him the way he called him his entire life). It works. Parrish's Pa has always said it's his special talent.

Then the Sheriff walks in and realizes the boy sitting on the bench is the man he knows as Derek Hale, and Parrish has to bite the inside of his cheek, because, fuck him, the whole thing is hilariously adorable. It's amazing how this man Parrish barely remembers managed to creep into his heart.

Speaking of heart: Stiles and Un-- Scott (keep the distance, Parrish) walk in right on cue, and Parrish has to keep his heart from jumping and have Scott and Derek notice it.

The Sheriff takes them both inside his office, and Parrish trains his hearing on the voices he's known since the day he was born and the one he's relearning, only to let out a surprised laugh when the Sheriff asks them about time-travelling.

"Just remembered a joke," he tells officer Rudy (more like officer Rude As Fuck), who's looking at him side-eyed.

~~~~~~~~

KateKateKate. Parrish's blood boils when he looks at her. This is the face of the person he has learned to hate with every fiber of his being. A face that's objectively beautiful, but with every smirk and snarl of her mouth, all Parrish can see is the hellish, cruel and sadistic monster that lurks below the surface.

“I thought she was dead?" he lies. The best thing about having a werewolf parent and being born into a pack is that you learn to lie in a way no lie-detector, be it a machine or a shifter, can catch.

"Apparently her coffin was empty," Scott says.

"Stiles! Scott! Get out of here!" the Sheriff whispers. "Let Parrish and I handle this!"

"But Dad..."

"Go! Go to Melissa's and stay there! I'll get you in the morning." He waves his gun in the direction of the jeep. "Both of you, go!"

Scott looks from the Sheriff to Stiles, who looks about to argue, and shrugs, not knowing what to do. Parrish grabs Stiles by the shoulder and turns him around.

"Go," he orders.

Stiles glares at him, but obeys and follows Scott. Ha! Stiles obeying him. Parrish could get used to that.

Once they hear the jeep leave (and Parrish can still hear Stiles cursing a blue streak), the Sheriff mentions him to follow.

"A kid from Stiles' school installed fiber-optic cameras in the vault," the Sheriff explains. 'Danny', Parrish's mind supplies. "Once we're sure she's deep inside enough with no way out, we'll corner her."

Parrish nods, fully aware how futile today's attempt at catching her will be. In the screen Kate moves past where the fake medallion and Peter's bonds were, and walks into another chamber, where Parrish knows books on the History of every single shape-shifting family in the Americas are kept. She looks around and the camera catches the glare of her supernatural eyes. The Sheriff gasps and looks at Parrish with worry.

"Something must be wrong with the screen," Parrish says, giving a light tap on the laptop and smiling easily.

"Hmm, yes, that must be it," the Sheriff says, before giving Derek— who's keeping an eye out on the other side of the vault's entry—the okay.

"Should you be here?" Parrish asks Derek, when they join him. 'You shouldn't be here. I don't want you here. I don't want you being hurt by her again', is what he wants to say, but he has to stick to the script.

"Derek is, uh, an asset to Beacon Hills police force," the Sheriff says, and Parrish wouldn't even need supernatural hearing to catch the obvious lie.

"Oh? You're on the payroll then?"

"You can say I'm getting paid," Derek says, hiding a lewd smirk.

The Sheriff gives him a confused look and Parrish decides that once he gets back, he's going to ask his Alpha to remove the particular memory of that smirk. There are certain things a person doesn't need to remember.

Derek pulls the jacket sleeve over his hand, and Parrish looks around, pretending he doesn't see him open the vault with his claws.

Once it's open, they run inside. Kate heard them, obviously, and Parrish knows she's ready to attack, but it still feels like he's the one being hit, when a wolfsbane bomb hits Derek right on the chest.

The bomb has a short radius, so that Kate doesn't get affected, too, but it's still enough for some of the wolfsbane to reach Parrish, and he's too affected by it and the sight of Derek writhing on the floor, trying to breath, that he doesn't see Kate aiming a gun at him.

"Parrish!" the Sheriff yells, before tackling him to the ground, as the wall behind them cracks with the shot.

In the confusion Kate manages to escape the vault, and when the air clears from the wolfsbane, Parrish scrambles from under the Sheriff to check on Derek.

"Are you all right?" he asks frantically, helping him up.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Derek gives him a bewildered look. "Uh, thanks?"

"You saved my life," Parrish tells the Sheriff, after he's sure Derek isn't just being his customary stoic self.

The Sheriff shrugs and waves his hand dismissively. Parrish knows it was nothing, that that's what he does, what with being an actual hero, but he hopes he took special care because it was him.

"Unfortunately the psycho escaped," he says, changing the subject.

"We'll get her next time," Parrish says. In five days, to be more precise.

~~~~~~~~

"Do you want to come in and have a snack?" the Sheriff asks Parrish, when he parks the cruiser in front of the Sheriff's house.

"Sure, I could eat something," Parrish says, eager to spend more time with the Sheriff.

Once inside Parrish asks if he can wash up, since he's covered in dust from the vault. The Sheriff tells him to use the bathroom upstairs, and that if he wants, he can take one of Stiles' t-shirts.

Parrish cleans himself as best as he can and walks into Stiles' bedroom, not to find a t-shirt, but a musicbox Claudia got Stiles when he was born. In a few years Stiles will place it in his son's nursery. A decade later, his son will break it, and while trying to fix it before his father finds out, he'll find a strange chip. Years later technology will allow him to read the script kept hidden in the chip. And he will follow that script.

Parrish opens the musicbox, removing four screws with a claw, and places the chip next to the box's mechanism. The chip with the detailed account of his past months in Beacon Hills and what he'll be doing in the next five days.

"I called Stiles," the Sheriff says, when Parrish gets back downstairs. "He was more frustrated we didn't catch Kate than he was glad none of us was hurt."

"I'm sure it's not like that."

"Nah," the Sheriff says, smiling fondly. "Had any of us gotten as much as a scraped knee, we wouldn't hear the end of it, even if we had caught her."

Parrish snorts. Seems about right.

The Sheriff opens a cupboard and reaches for a bag of Cheetos hidden behind a stack of plates.

"Don't tell Stiles," he says, offering Parrish the Cheetos, who declines. "That boy has his heart in the right place, but sometimes a man needs something other than healthy food."

"Stiles seems really invested on having Kate Argent caught," Parrish says, changing the subject. He knows he can't say anything, but he wants so much to beg the Sheriff to follow Stiles advice, tell him that that way he'll get to watch his grandson grow up.

The Sheriff shrugs.

"Derek is his friend and she did what she did."

"You don't seem particularly thrilled by that friendship."

"It's not like that," the Sheriff says, after finishing the bag of Cheetos in record time, which makes Parrish wince. "I have nothing against the kid, and lord knows that after all that happened to him, he deserves to surround himself with good people. But I won't deny it would be easier if my son wasn't one of those people."

Parrish bites his lip. If the Sheriff thinks this is bad, he sure won't be thrilled when he walks into his son's bedroom in six months time without knocking when Derek is there.

But one year from now Derek will take a wolfsbane bullet for Stiles, and the Sheriff will hold his son's face wet with tears to keep him from looking as a very shaky Lydia pours burnt wolfsbane on Derek's wound just in the nick of time. And then he's going to hug Derek in thanks and call him son. And Derek is going to cry in his arms for being called that for the first time in years.

In five years the Sheriff will proudly stand by his son's side on his wedding day and in seven years he will be asked to name his grandson. And he'll be so happy.

"But enough about Stiles," the Sheriff says. "We've been working together for months, and I feel like I don't know anything about you or your family."

Parrish shrugs and snickers internally for the unintentional irony in the Sheriff's words.

"I'm single and I have two dads."

The Sheriff nods.

"Adopted?"

"Surrogacy. My Pa supplied the swimmers and my dad's sister the egg and voilà!" He grins, making jazz-hands.

The Sheriff snorts, as Parrish takes a sip of his coffee.

"Sometimes you remind me of Stiles."

And Parrish does a spit-take.

"I do?"

"Just sometimes. Other times you're almost his opposite." He observes Parrish for a moment. "It's like you're a mix of Stiles with someone very collected."

"Is that so?" Parrish says, hiding a smirk. "Well, everyone always say that, physically I remind them of my grandpa, eyes and everything. Which is funny, because both my Pa and my aunt have brown eyes. But both grandpa and granddad had really light eyes, so it's not that weird."

"'Had'?"

Parrish nods.

"Grandpa's heart betrayed him when I was little and granddad was... murdered when my Dad was still a teenager."

The Sheriff hisses in sympathy and shakes his head.

"I'm so sorry, especially for your Dad having to go through that. Is that why you decided to join law enforcement?"

"Nah, my Pa is the Sheriff, like my grandpa before him. I'm just following in their footsteps." Parrish smiles. "Who knows, maybe one day I'll be Beacon Hills' sheriff."

"I'll drink to that, but only after I retire," the Sheriff smirks and raises his coffee cup. "Your Pa must be proud of you, like I'm sure your grandpa would be, too."

"You think so?" Parrish asks, choking up.

"I know so."

~~~~~~~~

Tonight is the night they will finally send Kate to the deepest ring if Hell like she deserves.

Following Lydia's directions (which Parrish isn't supposed to know of), they caught Kate's trail of destruction, and now have her lair in the preserve surrounded.

"That's the best side for us to attack," the Sheriff tells Parrish, pointing to a spot south of where they're hiding, while they wait for Scott's signal.

"Hmm, yes," Parrish says, biting his lip."And you should go through there. But I'm going to wait a while, make sure I've your back, and then cross the bridge over the stream instead."

"What? No, that way is too dangerous! You'll come with me."

"No."

"Parrish," the Sheriff said with authority, "this is an order!"

"Sir, with all due respect, I can't: Deaton surrounded that area with mountain ash. I really can't."

"What?"

Parrish shrugs sheepishly and flashes his eyes yellow.

"Oh, come on!" The Sheriff throws his arms up. "Not you, too!"

"I'm sorry."

The Sheriff pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers and sighs.

"Fine, we'll do what you said. But be careful!"

"Yes, sir, I will." He has to be. That's the only outcome he doesn't know yet. He knows everyone else but Kate will survive that night. He also knows they will search for his body for days, before declaring him dead. He hopes it's a good sign, that he managed to get home safely, and not something else.

Scott's howl echoes through the preserve.

"Okay, it's time," the Sheriff says.

Parrish nods and in an impulse throws his arms around the Sheriff in a fierce hug. It's the last time he'll get to hug him, and the next time the Sheriff hugs him, he won't knows it's him. The Sheriff staggers back in surprise, but then hugs him back.

"It's okay," he says, patting Parrish on the back. "We're going to be okay, son."

Parrish watched as the Sheriff walks to where the others are gathering closer, trapping Kate.

When her screams start rising in pitch, from furious to panicked and pained, he knows they got her and won't be paying attention to what he's doing. He runs to the bridge he knows Kate rigged to explode and looks for the trigger: it's an almost invisible thread, and anyone not paying attention would trip on it.

Parrish takes a rock and tries to take down the thread, but fails miserably.

"Seriously?" he huffs, picking up another rock and stepping closer.

This time he doesn't even have time to celebrate when the rock takes down the thread, making the bridge explode.

Parrish shakes his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears, and he can hear the Sheriff calling his name in despair. He wants to come back, wants to reassure that dear man, and in a way he could, because while he could only come here in the exact moment Stiles, Scott and Allison opened the Nemeton, he can return home anytime. But that would mean going off script and the consequences could be dire.

He swims across the stream, trying to block out the Sheriff frantically calling for him, reaches the tree stump, closes his eyes and...

... And when he opens them again the sun is shining bright, his pack is there in a half circle and in front of the pack his fathers are glaring at him.

"Heeeey," he tries and flinches when his Dad raises a single eyebrow at him.

"'Hey'?" his Pa mimics, fuming. "That's all you have to say?"

"It's not like he had the time to say anything else," Uncle Scott says, lips quivering.

"Dude," Pa says, gaping at Uncle Scott, "you're the worst Alpha ever! You should be putting your growly voice and admonish him for worrying everybody!"

"Come on, man," uncle Scott says. "We've done worse when we were his age."

"When I was his age I was about to became a parent. And I don't recall ever messing with the time-space continuum."

"Are you all right?" Dad asks, patting Parrish everywhere.

"I'm fine, Dad."

"How did you do it?" Pa asks. "I know there was magic involved, but werewolves can't do ma--" He stops, eyes going wide, and turns to where Deaton is trying to limp away as fast as his walking cane allows him. "Deeeea-toooon!"

Deaton stops dead in his tracks and turns slowly, one hand already raised to shield him from the Sheriff's rage.

"I'm sorry, but when I saw the script Parrish left to himself thirty years ago, I had no choice but to help him."

"Yes," Aunt Lydia says, "think about it: Deaton was the only one who could help him and if he had already left the script to himself, then Deaton had already helped him. He could not not do something he had already done."

Pa sighs in frustration, while Uncle Scott, Aunt Kira, Aunt Cora and Mae exchange confused looks. Dad is too busy clutching Parrish's arm and frowning in concentration, Parrish realizes, as he feels a weird tingling sensation up his arm.

"Seriously, Dad?" He rolls his eyes. "I said I was fine. Are you leaching imaginary pains now?"

"You could be pretending, so you wouldn't worry us more," Dad says, dropping Parrish's arm.

"Hm, I wonder who would've taught me that."

Pa snorts, but then coughs and schools his features back to a stern glare.

"Can I ask the really important question?" Mae asks, timidly, only to get a mischievous gleam in her eyes right away. "How were my parents when they were my age?"

Parrish's face breaks in a huge grin.

"Don't ever ask then for romantic advice," he tells her. "I've never seen a courting more awkward. Plus your mom wore cartoon leggings."

Mae squeals in delight and Uncle Scott slaps him on the back of his head.

"Well, awkward or not, it worked," he says, glaring at his daughter. "You're here, aren't you?"

"And cartoon leggings were hip back then," Aunt Kira mutters.

Aunt Lydia looks at her horrified and mouths "never" at Mae, shaking her head vehemently.

"Mom, please don't say 'hip'. No one says that anymore."

"Oh god," Dad groans, hiding his face on his hands. "I just realized we named you after yourself."

Pa gapes, flails and then points an accusing finger at Parrish.

"Your grandpa never stopped feeling guilty about you dying that night!" He throws his arms up when Parrish looks at him sheepishly. "But of course you'd figured that out already."

"Sort of hard not to."

"Okay," Uncle Scott says, clapping his hands. "We should all go to lunch and then back to work. We've all missed two days of work and school already, because we were so worried over you," he tells Parrish. Then he turns to Pa and grins. "Good?"

"Very good, Scotty," Pa says, clapping him on the shoulder. "Very Alpha-y."

The entire pack starts walking towards the road, but Parrish and his Pa stay behind.

"Has it really been only two days to you?"

"You should count yourself lucky," Pa says, but then his stern look softens and he gives Parrish a sad smile. "So, how was he?"

Parrish takes a deep breath smiles brightly.

"He was amazing, Pa," he says. "He really was the best."

"That he was, son. That he was."

"Stiles! Parrish! Come on!" Dad calls. "You can talk over lunch."

Pa shakes his head fondly and puts an arm around Parrish's shoulders.

"Let's go, son, you know how your Dad gets when he's hungry," he says. "We're coming, Derek!"