Work Text:
“You look really nice in a uniform,” Stiles says bluntly from where he’s perched in his usual spot on the edge of Parrish’s desk.
Parrish stops filling out the paperwork he’s been working at idly for the past 20 minutes to glance up at Stiles, slightly surprised and wholly entertained. He’s about to thank him for the compliment when Stiles’s brain seems to catch up with what he just said and he begins immediately trying to backtrack, bombarding Parrish with a wordy explanation.
“Not that you wouldn’t look nice in anything you wore,” Stiles adds awkwardly and Parrish has to choke back a laugh. The kid was about as far away from subtle as a person could get. “I mean, you’re very, uh, fit. So you could, um, wear anything. Or nothing! You could definitely pull off wearing nothing.”
It was Parrish’s turn to blush and he could feel his cheeks heating slightly.
“Oh my god, I swear I’m not trying to compare you to a stripper! You know the stereotypical cop stripper. Not that you couldn’t be! You totally have the abs for that….I’m done talking. Forever,” Stiles rushes out, face bright red and splotchy from embarrassment.
“Stiles, get your ass in my office before you’re reported for sexual harassment,” Sheriff Stilinski bellows at his son from the doorway to his office, but he’s clearly trying to mask his own amusement at his kid’s obviousness.
Stiles looks at Parrish with wide eyes, rushes out an abashed apology, and skitters off toward his dad, nearly tripping over his long legs in his haste. Sheriff rolls his eyes as Stiles dodges past him and into the safe haven of his office, but shoots Parrish a semi-apologetic look.
Parrish can only laugh.
|-|
Stiles has been talking animatedly for the past 15 minutes about some school project and as much as the sheriff loved talking to his son, he really did have a job to do.
“Kid, I love you, but I have to go,” sheriff says, cutting Stiles off mid-sentence. Stiles is gaping at him, mouth open - probably ready to chastise his father for not understanding the “obvious” weight of what he was saying - but sheriff interjects before he gets the chance. “Why don’t you go tell Parrish? I’m sure he’d love to hear all about it, kiddo.”
Stiles stops staring at him like he kicked his puppy and glances through the window of his father’s office and over at Parrish, typing away at his computer. Stiles can’t stop the goofy grin that spreads across his face, the one that used to be reserved exclusively for when Stiles was mooning over Lydia. Oh boy.
He knows he shouldn’t be encouraging this little crush - well, not little, Stiles doesn’t do little - but he really does have shit he needs to get done, so if he pawns off his kid on his too-nice-for-his-own-good deputy, who could really blame him?
“You can tell me about it later,” sheriff tells Stiles even though he knows he didn’t have to bother because Stiles’s focus is very clearly no longer on him. Stiles follows him out of the office, eyes not leaving Parrish once. Sheriff grabs Stiles’s bicep gently, drawing his attention once again. “Be back home by ten, okay? You need to get some sleep.”
Stiles nods, grin broadening even further when he realizes Parrish is smiling over at them. He moves to pull away, but sheriff doesn’t let go, instead leans forward and presses a kiss to Stiles’s forehead. He tries not to revel too much in the way the tips of Stiles’s ears turn red and the glare Stiles shoots him as he mutters a quick goodbye before all but running to Parrish’s desk and away from his humiliating father.
Stiles wastes no time in hopping up to sit on the edge of Parrish’s desk, already engaging him in an energetic conversation. John watches for a moment, taking in the enthusiastic manner in which Stiles tells stories, all wild gesticulations and rambling words. But the smile never leaves his face, John notices. Right before noticing that he’s not the only person watching Stiles intently and Parrish isn’t even pretending to be doing any work now, giving his full attention to Stiles with an amused glint in his eyes and an easy smile on his face.
Maybe he won’t owe his deputy one, after all, he thinks.
Right before Stiles’s exaggerated movements cause the contents of Parrish’s desk - minus the computer, thankfully - to crash to the floor.
He turns around and heads for the parking lot without a backwards glance.
|-|
“Hey?” Stiles says sounding both confused and excited when he realizes Parrish is driving and not his father. But then it hit him. “Oh god, he’s okay, isn’t he? Please tell me he’s okay-"
“Stiles, your dad is fine.”
“Oh thank god,” Stiles responds, sighing in relief as he opens the passenger door to the police cruiser and gets in. “So where is he?”
“You don’t like my company?” Parrish asks teasingly as he pulls out of the high school parking lot.
“What?! No, no, no! Of course I do! I just - I wasn’t expecting it. I like you - I mean, I like hanging out with you. Not like…”
Parrish smirks at the way Stiles trips over his words. It never gets old. For someone as smart and quick-witted as Stiles, he really doesn’t seem to be able to not constantly talk himself into a hole.
“How’d you get saddled with picking me up?”
“Your dad’s out on a case and sense your jeep’s in the shop I told him I’d pick you up and take you to the station,” Parrish tells him matter-of-factly.
“Is it the Moore case? Is someone being arrested? Is it the boyfriend? I knew it was the boyfriend!” Stiles says excitedly.
“It’s not the Moore case,” Parrish says with a chuckle. “But what do you mean its the boyfriend?”
“Yeah, of course it is,” Stiles answers, simultaneously not explaining his position and looking at Parrish like he is completely insane for wanting an explanation.
“Ex-husband,” Parrish counters, trying to suppress a laugh at Stiles’s undignified squawk of disagreement.
Parrish enjoys this, riling Stiles up. There’s nothing more amusing than Stiles arguing his theory because he gets so passionate. So, naturally, Parrish pokes at the holes in Stiles’s theories and tries to keep his pokerface on as Stiles bounces eagerly in the passenger seat.
They pull up to the station not five minutes later and Stiles isn’t arguing anymore, hasn’t been for a couple minutes. In retrospect, Parrish realizes this should have been a red flag. When itcomes to Stiles, defeat is not an option and you’re only getting a stalemate at best. So Stiles not refuting Parrish’s claims and opting to stare quietly out the passenger window? Yeah, that might have been a clue.
“Stiles? Are you okay?” Parrish asks worriedly as Stiles makes no move to leave the car even though they’ve been parked for a solid minute now.
Stiles opens his mouth like he is about to respond, like he wants to respond, but nothing comes out and he’s left sitting there with his mouth hanging open and his wide eyes firmly fixed on the dashboard in front of him.
“Stiles?” Parrish tries again, truly confused.
Still nothing.
“I’m getting out of the car, okay? I’m going to come around to your side, aright?”
Stiles doesn’t respond but Parrish doesn’t expect him to so he gets out of the car and walks around to the passenger door. Parrish opens the door slowly, not wanting to startle Stiles even though he honestly has no idea what’s going on. He hadn’t meant to upset the kid.
“Stiles, I’m sorry if I said something to offend you. I - ” Parrish trails off, spotting the dark spot on Stiles’s jeans and the obvious reason he isn’t moving from the car. “Oh.”
Stiles turns to look at him, brown eyes wide and scared.
“Did you have an accident?” Parrish asks and he wants to take it back the very second the stupid question is out of his mouth. Of course he had an accident. Stiles knows it. Parrish knows it. It really didn’t need to be said and god Parrish wishes he hadn’t said it when Stiles’s gaze falls to his feet and his jaw clenches tightly shut.
“Sorry. Can you get out the car for me?” Parrish asks gently.
Stiles doesn’t move a muscle, Parrish doesn’t even think he’s breathing.
“It’s okay, Stiles. It’s not a big deal. Let’s get you inside, though, alright?”
Nothing.
“Come on, Stiles, it’s fine, okay?” Parrish says, reaching a hesitant hand towards Stiles’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry. Oh god, I didn’t - ”
“Hey, no. You’re okay,” Parrish assures him, reaching for Stiles’s hand and gripping it gently in his own. “I mean it, it’s not a big deal. I’m going to take you inside now, get you a change of clothes from my work locker, alright?”
Stiles’s nod is barely there and hesitant at best but Parrish runs with it.
“Alright, let’s get you out of the car then before you get too uncomfortable,” Parrish coaxes, gently tugging Stiles by the hand he is still holding. “Come on, I’ll take you through the back.”
He manages to get Stiles to the employee stalls without anyone seeing them, thankfully,and fetches the jeans he was planning on wearing home from work without being questioned, miraculously. It’s all going surprisingly smoothly, that is until Parrish returns to the bathroom and Stiles won’t leave the stall.
“Stiles, come on, you have clean pants on. There’s no reason not to come out,” he tries for what feels like the 500th time. “Please, come out. For me?”
Parrish can hear Stiles shuffle slightly inside the closed stall and figures he must be on the right track sense it’s the most movement there’s been in at least 15 minutes.
“I’d really like it if you’d come out, Stiles. You’re worrying me.”
The door to the stall creaks open slowly and Stiles steps out timidly, not making eye contact. A desire to please and a touch of guilt, that’s how you get Stiles to cooperate. Parrish will need to remember that.
“I’m sorry,” Stiles mumbles and Parrish can’t handle the look of dejection on Stiles’s face.
He pulls Stiles into a hug, rubbing a hand down Stiles’s tense back until the teen slumps against him, head resting on his shoulder.
“I should have told you I had to go,” Stiles says regretfully, voice muffled from where his mouth is pressed against Parrish’s uniform.
“Why didn’t you?” Parrish asks carefully, still rubbing circles into Stiles’s back.
“Embarrassed, I guess,” Stiles answers, shrugging halfheartedly.
“You’ve got a funny idea of what’s embarrassing,” Parrish jokes.
“You’re an ass,” Stiles tells him as he steps away and pushes lightly at Parrish’s shoulder, but he’s smiling. “Dad’s probably back now,” Stiles says.
Parrish nods, lets Stiles walk towards the door before calling out to him, “Stiles.”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t get saddled with picking you up, I volunteered.”
Stiles offers him a small but genuine smile, ducking his head in an attempt to hide his burning cheeks.
“Stiles.”
Stiles turns to him once more, quirking an eyebrow.
Parrish walks past him, pushes open the door, and pauses.
“It was the boyfriend,” he says, letting the door shut on Stiles’s shocked face.
|-|
Stiles walks into the station quickly, making a beeline for his dad’s office and very carefully keeping his gaze straight in front of him - not at all veering to the right to see Parrish hunched over something or other, hand running through his soft, recently darkened hair. Nope, Stiles wasn’t looking. Not at all. He slinks past the desks in the bullpen, confident he’s made it unnoticed.
Which is why he practically jumps out of his skin when he hears a voice call out, “long time no see.”
He turns to see Parrish smiling warmly at him and for a split second he completely forgets why he’s been avoiding Parrish, why he would ever want to avoid someone that attractive who actually tolerates him for god only knows what reason.
But reality slams back into him like a truck and he remembers that the last time he’d seen Parrish - well, excluding some not so subtle staring out of his dad’s office window, staring that his dad had definitely judged him for - was when he pissed himself like a child and that memory alone was enough to freeze Stiles in his tracks.
He’s sure he looks like the epitome of the phrase “deer caught in the headlights” and his open-mouthed staring is probably getting a little weird at this point, but his faculties just aren’t working right. He means to say something casual, something along the lines of “yeah, how’ve you been?” but what actually comes out of his mouth is so unintelligible he isn’t even sure if they were actual words.
He hightails it into his dad’s office, slamming the door shut much too loudly, before Parrish even has a chance to respond. He stands there, back pressed against the door behind him, trying to avoid his dad’s critical gaze.
“Well, that was smooth,” John says after a minute or so of silence, clearly having witnessed the whole scene.
Stiles shoots him a glare as he moves to take the seat in front of his dad’s desk, but doesn’t respond.
“Everything alright?” John asks, concerned even though he wholeheartedly believes Parrish would never do anything to hurt his kid. He still has to check, just to be sure, because Stiles is being exceptionally weird and that’s never a good sign.
“Yeah, fine. Why’d you ask?” Stiles questions, trying to feel out if Parrish said anything to his dad. God he hopes not.
“You’re avoiding him,” his dad answers simply, not even bothering to clarify who the ‘him’ in this situation is.
“No, I’m not,” Stiles denies much too quickly. I just, uh, wanted to spend more time with you and thought, you know, what better place to do that than here…in your office…with you.”
His dad eyes him carefully before going back to reading his case file, obviously not buying a word of it, but letting it drop nonetheless. Stiles has never loved him more than in that moment.
|-|
“And Parrish said that he thinks it’s the ex-husband, but I - ”
“Dear god, please just to talk him,” John interrupts, staring across the diner table at Stiles who is building a leaning tower of saltine crackers. Or was building rather because he knocks them all down with a flailing hand the second John speaks.
“What?” Stiles asks, seemingly dumbfounded.
“That has got to be the twentieth time you’ve mentioned Parrish. In the past half hour.”
Stiles fiddles with the edges of the Sweet’N Low packets sitting on the table, biting his tongue. Probably the only way he can stop himself from talking about Jordan, John thinks, letting out a long-suffering sigh.
He reaches across the table, stilling Stiles’s fidgeting hand by capturing it in his own. Stiles looks up at him with his big, doe-like eyes through those impossibly long lashes, and John doesn’t think he’s ever seen his kid look so lost. He holds his son’s gaze for a few moments, mentally choosing his words because he knows this is a delicate situation.
“Stiles, I know you really like him,” John starts, ignoring the obvious blush on his kid’s cheeks, “and that’s fine,” he adds, making sure that Stiles understands that he isn’t bothered by the fact that his son’s crushing on another man. “And I don’t know what happened between the two of you,” John says slowly, giving Stiles the chance to interrupt and fill him in if he so chooses. He doesn’t, instead electing to stare down at their still joined hands, so John continues, “but you spend a lot of time at the station and I’d hate for you to feel uncomfortable in a place that you practically grew up in. So talk to him, kiddo. Stop avoiding whatever it is you’re avoiding.”
He gives Stiles’s hand a squeeze and Stiles offers him a small smile as he withdraws his hand, restarting the construction of his tower.
It was going to be a long night.
|-|
“You busy?” Stiles asks, standing nervously at the side of Parrish’s desk. If this had been a couple weeks ago, Stiles would already be on top of it, Parrish can’t help but think.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” Parrish answers delicately, careful not to disturb whatever strange balance they have going on right now.
“I, uh, I brought dinner. For my dad. And me. But there’s extra. If you want. You know, to eat…with my dad….and me.You don’t have to, you’re probably busy-”
“I love Cathy’s diner,” Parrish interjects, gesturing to the bags in Stiles’s hands.
“Great,” Stiles responds, face breaking out into a wide smile.
Parrish couldn’t help but smile back as he followed Stiles into his boss’s office.
They spend dinner with John and Parrish exchanging stories about their time in the army and John has to exercise every ounce of self-control he possesses not to laugh at the way his son is hanging off of Parrish’s every word.
Eventually the subject matter transitions into a discussion of the supernatural, as so many of John’s conversations seem to do these days, and Parrish mentions that Lydia had given a copy of the bestiary.
“Oh, I could help you look through it! We could order Chinese and watch Star Wars and - ” Stiles blurts excitedly before stopping himself abruptly. “I-I’m not,” he hesitates, fiddling with the hem of his shirt and taking a deep breath. “I wasn’t asking you out, I swear. Sorry, you probably don’t want to hang out with some kid and watch Star Wars, I actually forget how lame I am sometimes. But - ”
“I’d like the help, Stiles, thank you,” Parrish says before Stiles can continue on his cycle of self-deprecation.
His son could do a lot worse, John thinks.
|-|
“Stiles, you got a minute?” Parrish calls out the next day.
“Yeah.Yes. Of course. What’s up?” Stiles asks, bouncing over to him like an energetic puppy. He takes one look at Parrish and says, “Oh, it’s that talk.”
“Talk?”
“Yeah, the talk. You know, the one where you tell me I’m great, but you’re not interested. I’m not a total geek, but I’m just not your type,” Stiles explains, shrugging his shoulders halfheartedly and looking dejected.
“Oh, you’re totally a geek,” Parrish teases, unable to resist.
“You’re bad at this conversation, you know that?” Stile tells him, but he’s smiling slightly, like he knows Parrish is about to break his heart but he still appreciates the joke.
“That’s because I’m not trying to have that conversation,” Parrish answers matter-of-factly.
“Don’t,” Stiles says abruptly and Parrish wonder what he said wrong. “Just…don’t worry about it, alright? I really didn’t expect anything else. I’m an annoying, hopeless kid. I get it, okay?”
“Stiles, I don’t think you’re annoying,” Parrish states sincerely.
“So I’m not just some hopeless kid?” Stiles asks, sounding eager but also like he’s trying very hard not to sound eager.
“You are a kid,” Parrish says emphatically.
“Okay, I’m getting kind of mixed signals here,” Stiles says, face contorting in confusion. “You’re 17.”
“For four more months!” Stiles argues indignantly.
“And you should be enjoying that,” Parrish tells him, watching the way Stiles’s face falls once again, “but I’ll tell you what: if you’re still interested in 4 months, and we’re both single, then I’d love to take you out to dinner.
“Are - are you serious?” Stiles asks, looking more surprised than Parrish has ever seen him.
“I’m serious,” Parrish tells him, not able to keep from smiling himself. “But I don’t want you waiting around for that, okay? Stiles doesn’t respond and Parrish knows this is all just going in one ear and out the other. “You need to live your life. Okay? Stiles?”
“You won’t regret this, I promise!” Stiles tells him as he hops to his feet and hurries out of the station, probably off to call Scott.
Parrish can only laugh.