A/N: Set post-canon for ADJL. Standard disclaimers apply.

Jake sat on the chair in front of the desk in the sheriff's office, not entirely sure how he'd gotten into this situation or how the heck he was going to get out of it.

He'd thought, since Gramps had let him go on this trip over the holidays, this was a dragon emergency he was supposed to be able to handle. Well, emergency was the wrong word, but it was definitely something that needed looking into, the sort of looking into he could do without getting into too much trouble as far as Jake could tell, and Gramps must have agreed since the trip had happened.

Okay, so it might have taken a little bit of wheedling on Jake's part, but he was almost seventeen now. He was supposed to be taking on more responsibility as time and training allowed. Despite all appearances to the contrary, this was him taking on more responsibility.

He could still handle this. That ship won't have sailed until someone had to come rescue him, and he was not at that point yet. And he was not going to get to that point because he could handle this. Even if it killed him. If he didn't, Haley would never let him hear the end of it.

Fu's information had been spotty, but there was enough of it to know that there was definitely something going on here that merited a visit from the Am Drag. There were a lot of weird little spots like this all over the States, and usually Gramps's network could handle things or smooth them over, but some of the contacts from his network and Fu's in this area had gone unexpectedly dark, which was half the reason for this visit.

There was something going on here, and from the little Jake had seen before being dragged down in here, this place was a ticking time bomb. Something was going to explode in their faces if they didn't deal with it. He just didn't know what that something was.

Technically, Jake was here to look around and not get involved. It was a glorified scouting mission. Get some information, bring it back to Gramps, figure out what to do, and then come back with a plan—and help, if necessary. That may have been one of Gramps's conditions when it had come to letting Jake come alone now, but still. Nothing that had happened had been his fault.

The sheriff let out a weary sigh, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples instead of looking at Jake. "Please tell me the truth, even if you don't think either of us will like the truth. Why did you start that fire?"

Okay, so that had kinda been his fault.

It had been an accident, though.

Mostly.

The fire had been deliberate; its spreading had not.

He'd still helped the phoenix, though, so— He could probably call this a win? Maybe?

"Yo, aren't you supposed to read me my rights if you're arresting me? Because that did not happen when your guys picked me up."

The sheriff looked at him then. "They brought you in for questioning."

"So why are we in here instead of in an interrogation room?" He didn't want to be in an interrogation room because the cameras would mean he couldn't get out of there, but he didn't want to be stuck in here, either. "Or did you change your mind about arresting me?"

"I'm not arresting you. This is me trying very hard not to arrest you. There is a lot of evidence telling me I should arrest you, but I suspect there's more to the story, and I'd like to hear it before anyone else gets any ideas. We're in here because it's private."

Huh.

Brad's dad would've definitely skipped straight to arresting him.

Not that that would make much difference, though, since there was no way this guy would believe the truth if Jake told it. "If you're so sure that I started that fire, how do you think I did it?" The answer wasn't going to be dragon fire, so hopefully the sheriff would say something Jake could work with.

The sheriff glanced over to his closed door, looked back at Jake, and deadpanned, "Hellfire."

Jake snorted. "Right. I'm a demon from hell. That makes way more sense than a lightning strike and me just being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"You're not from around here, are you?" the sheriff asked. "Don't answer that. I know you aren't. I'd have heard about you already if you were. I just— You need to know this isn't the first time I've done this."

"What, had a teenager in your office for an unofficial interrogation?" On one hand, it was nice he was trying to be helpful, even if Jake wasn't sure why he was bothering when there wasn't anything he'd get out of it. On the other hand, Jake could get out of this whole situation a lot faster if they left him alone in a cell where he could pick the lock in peace.

Then again, there would be cameras there, too. Probably.

The sheriff gave him that Look. The 'I know you know what I'm talking about so stop playing dumb and work with me here' look. Jake was familiar. In this case, though, it was entirely unwarranted. Jake really didn't know what the sheriff was trying to get at if it wasn't that he was probably not going to arrest Jake even if he should at least hold him for an official interrogation instead of whatever this was.

Not that Jake was going to complain.

He was pretty sure this was going better for him than anything official would be.

"This isn't the first time I've dealt with a situation arising from this town living up to its name," the sheriff said quietly.

"Say what?" That didn't make any sense. Names could have power in the right situation, sure, but as far as Jake knew, this was not any of those situations. Even in those situations, the name of a town would only get someone so far. Beacon Hills was hilly enough, Jake supposed, but he didn't see how that would cause a situation.

The sheriff scrubbed a hand down his face and changed tack. "Are you a runaway?"

"Uh. No?"

"Then where are you parents?"

Aaaaand this was why it had taken him almost a week to convince Gramps to let him come alone. It had only taken him five days and a bribe to Haley for help to convince his parents.

Well, that, and the fact that he was technically supposed to be with Fu Dog right now, except Fu had gone to check on his contacts and sniff out potential leads to follow, so Jake had tried investigating on his own, and then he'd found the phoenix, and then, well….

Then, the fire had gotten out of hand, and the phoenix really hadn't helped matters, and then they'd vanished into the flames and left him alone in front of the burning shed and—

Did it count as framing him for arson if he had deliberately set the fire in the first place, considering it was for a good cause?

"Why does that matter? I'm eighteen."

"You're not eighteen."

"Okay, so I'm almost eighteen."

Another sigh. Jake supposed he shouldn't be surprised; that lie wasn't likely to work until he hit another growth spurt. This being spring break might not help his case, either, since it looked like he had time to go around setting fires in the middle of the day while someone older than him was more likely to be stuck at work, like this guy was.

"Please work with me here, son. I can't help if I don't know what's going on."

Jake opened his mouth to make an obscure comment about how he couldn't help even if he did know what was going on before remembering Fu's lessons about getting information out of people without their realizing it. He closed his mouth and shrugged instead.

"Look," the sheriff said, dropping his voice and leaning forward slightly, "have you at least talked to Derek if you haven't talked to Scott?"

Jake blinked. "Who?" If the guy was trying to catch him in a verbal trap, it was a poorly laid trap, even by Jake's standards.

"Derek Hale," the sheriff said, not bothering to clarify who this Scott person was.

Hale, though.

That name kinda rang a bell.

Fu had some dirt on a guy named Hale.

Jake couldn't remember if his first name was Derek, though.

He glanced at the sheriff's nametag, but Stilinski wasn't familiar, and Jake definitely would've remembered it if Fu had mentioned it because that name was similar enough to Spud's to stick in his mind.

Honestly, though, Jake not recognizing the sheriff's name but recognizing the name of the guy he thought Jake should have talked to was weird. It didn't necessarily mean anything, but it could. Fu might've known if he were here, but in his absence, Jake went with the next best option. "Why would I want to talk to him?"

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at him.

Huh.

Jake was perhaps not as subtle when it came to fishing for information as he'd meant to be.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," drawled the sheriff, "but isn't it common courtesy for you folks to check in with their sort when you come by, if only to assure them you aren't planning to attack?"

That…did not clear things up. "Say what? I know you think I set that fire just to watch it burn, but I'm not planning on attacking anyone!"

"I don't think—" The sheriff broke off. "We don't need to beat around the bush here. I know more about what goes on in this town than most people. If something comes up that looks to be a little to the left of my usual jurisdiction, I check in with the others to find out what I can of the real story and then figure out how I can help out. Most of the time, I can even wrap up my investigation without endangering more lives. So if you're not running away from your pack or seeking advice or whatever other reason you might have been given by your pack to come here, why are you here?"

Jake stared. "Pack?"

The sheriff pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you really going to sit here and pretend you're perfectly ordinary? We both know you're not." He dropped his hand and looked at Jake again. "Can you just put your cards on the table and make this easier for both of us? Please? I can't help you unless you stop pretending. Even if you don't want to tell me why you're here right now, will you tell me what you are? Maybe it'll be easier if we start there."

"Um. I'm just a tourist? I mean, you already know I'm not from around here, so it's not like that's hard to guess?" Jake couldn't exactly claim to be visiting family without having to immediately face the question of 'who are they' or 'what's their phone number' or something equally inconvenient.

"You don't think I know what kind of reputation Beacon Hills has? This is hardly prime tourism territory. Even if it were, it's February, and winter sports aren't our thing. You aren't here to spend time in the great outdoors, and that's really the only appeal to this place if you can look past the supposed animal attacks."

"Supposed?"

"Like I said, I know more about what goes on around here than most people."

Right. "And what, exactly, goes on around here?"

The sheriff sighed. "Fine, if you're not comfortable talking to me, you can talk to Parrish." He stood and left his office, closing the door behind him.

Jake didn't bother twisting to see who he was talking to, figuring he'd be introduced to this Parrish soon enough.

He didn't bother listening in on their conversation, either.

He was too busy trying to figure out what the sheriff was saying—and what he wasn't. For as much as he'd said they might as well tell it to each other straight, he was still talking around something. Something he expected Jake to know, though Jake wasn't sure why he was expected to know it. It wasn't like he knew what Jake had really been doing…right?

But even if he did know, somehow, that didn't make the matter his problem. It was definitely Jake's. Helping the phoenix had been one thing. A small thing. There was a lot more to this, whatever this was, but Jake hadn't had enough time to poke around and figure out the shape of the thing.

Fu's intel, once they got back together, would undoubtedly make things much clearer. Jake might actually know what was going on and how he could best help.

Well.

Maybe.

With half of Fu's network gone, the other half might not be so eager to cough up a lot of info if they thought talking was the reason the others had gone missing. But if they thought it was something else, thought they might be next and thought Jake could stop it? Then they'd talk.

Fu was good at patterns.

If Jake couldn't figure it out, there was a very good chance that Fu could.

The magic in this place was weird, though. It wasn't as strong as it was on the Isle of Draco, but it was easily one of the strongest places Jake had felt outside of that. The Magus Bazaar dripped with all sorts of magic, the kind you could taste in the air the minute you arrived. This? Jake could feel it, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. It resonated somewhere deep inside of him—one moment a comfort, the next a warning, before fading back into a lull that threatened to be little more than false security—and he suspected he was on edge more because he knew there was something bigger going on here than anything else.

Jake still didn't really know anything, but he was becoming more convinced by the moment that he'd need help to deal with whatever this mess was.

There was a soft, two tap rapping on the door that pulled Jake from his thoughts. Deputy Parrish, presumably. He looked about as ordinary as the rest of them, but Jake wrinkled his nose, catching a whiff of— Something.

The fire in Jake's chest flared, warm with warning.

Danger.

Maybe.

Magic? Definitely.

Jake wasn't sure what kind yet, though. Training at the magical market was tedious enough that he had always tried to avoid it whenever he could, but that went double now that Gramps made him do it blindfolded. It was a good thing none of the patrons or stall owners minded their little part in his dragon training, since it was really embarrassing whenever he got something wrong.

"I'm Deputy Parrish. Sheriff Stilinski thought you'd feel more comfortable talking to someone a little lower on the food chain?"

Jake frowned. It wasn't like Parrish hadn't shut the door tightly behind him, and Jake sincerely doubted the sheriff had bugged his own office. Parrish wasn't even wearing a radio—or, at least, not one that Jake could see at a glance—so no one was listening in on their conversation. Not easily, anyway.

If this guy had known Jake was the American Dragon, he'd have come out and said it.

Jake didn't expect every single magical creature in the country to know him on sight—it was better that they didn't where his enemies were concerned, even though most magical creatures he'd met seemed to have a vague idea of his description—but Fu had warned his contacts about this visit. Jake had expected that it would get out. It usually did. Fu had assumed it would and slipped in a different little lie with each telling, just so he could track how the information moved.

Jake closed his eyes, focusing, and breathed in again through his nose.

This guy's magic was too strong to be dormant.

"Are you okay?" asked Parrish, and Jake opened his eyes to see concern in the man's face.

"There's something weird going on," Jake murmured, talking more to himself than the deputy, but Parrish must've heard him easily enough because he cracked a smile.

"When isn't there in Beacon Hills?" He paused, but when Jake didn't say anything, he added, "Say, what brings you to town, anyway?"

Jake couldn't exactly say he was here to help when he didn't know what the problem was, let alone what he could do to help. That would sound more like a lie than a lie would, with his luck. "Is it so hard to believe I came here with my dog just to get away?" If they let him out of here, they'd probably still be watching him, so it would be weirder if he didn't mention Fu Dog now.

Parrish considered him for a moment before sitting on the edge of the desk, looking entirely unsurprised when Jake scooted his chair back in response. Then, softly, "No. A lot of us are drawn here. It's all right. You're not alone. Whatever you're going through, we can help if you'll let us."

Wait.

"Yo, you've got this all wrong. I'm not running away from anything."

Parrish tilted his head. "Are you running to something?" Jake shook his head, but that just prompted an, "Are you sure about that?"

"Sure I'm sure! I'm not the one who needs help, yo. Not, like, right now, anyway. That's you guys." Okay, maybe he shouldn't have said that much to an unknown magical creature, but Jake doubted this guy wanted to hurt him.

Parrish looked wary now. Great. "Pardon?"

"I just…." Jake shrugged. "I help. I protect. That's what I do. It's kinda in my job description."

"Are you even out of high school?" asked Parrish with a look on his face that meant he was asking a very different question than that one, but Jake wasn't entirely sure what it was.

"No," he admitted, because the sheriff had as good as guessed that anyway, "but that's not the point. I'm supposed to protect—" He bit off his remark and swallowed his next question, only realizing now that the sheriff had—more or less—asked him the same thing he'd been about to ask Parrish: what are you?

He was something with an affinity for fire, Jake was pretty sure, but that didn't narrow it down enough. There were a lot of different types of magical creatures and species within those types of magical creatures, and dragons were hardly the only ones who could pass as humans.

That was also a moot point, because Jake was almost certain the sheriff wasn't magical, which meant more humans knew about the magical world, and the Dragon Council wouldn't be happy. They'd probably find a way to blame it on him, maybe saying he was being derelict in his duty as the American Dragon. Anything to get him in trouble—and Gramps, by extension.

Well.

That wasn't the entire Dragon Council.

Chang had always been the worst of it, and she might be gone now, but that didn't mean the others didn't harbour more than a healthy suspicion about the soundness of his judgement after listening to her for so many years. It was like he was perpetually fighting back against their ingrained poor opinion of him, and half of what he did seemed to solidify it despite all the good he'd done.

"Who are you protecting?"

Jake wasn't a good enough liar to come up with something decent, so he went with the truth. "You. And everyone like you."

Concern had settled back in Parrish's features, pulling at his brow. "So you're aware?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral. "About what you are? And others?"

Jake crossed his arms. "Ten to one I know more about the magical world than you do."

Parrish relaxed at the words, maybe because Jake had been the one to come out and say it, maybe because it meant he didn't have to break the news about the existence of magic to someone who was in denial. "You're from a magical family who knows what they are?"

Yeah, this guy didn't even have a suspicion about who Jake really was. Which likely meant— "You're not, huh?" He couldn't imagine that. If Parrish's powers had stayed dormant, then fine, he might've been able to write off his inherent magic as intuition and the like, but if they'd come out in ways as subtle as Jake's had during dragon puberty, he pitied the guy.

"Awakening was an interesting experience," Parrish said in a tone that implied that there was a lot more of a story there but Jake hadn't earned a word of it.

Well.

He might not earn the story, not that he really needed to hear it unless it was part of whatever was going on around here now, but he might be able to earn a modicum of trust. Jake stuck out his hand. "Jake Long."

No recognition at the name. Not that he'd expected it at this point. "Deputy Jordan Parrish."

The handshake was firm, a quick up and down, but Jake was more surprised by Parrish's eyes flashing gold when they touched than he was by anything else. If Parrish had felt the swell of magic within him, he gave no indication of it, but Jake….

That reaction, fire calling to fire, was something he'd heard about, even if it wasn't one he'd seen before.

Hellhound.

One of the species, anyway. The ones that had a human form. And, from what Jake vaguely remembered reading about, ones less attached to any religious ideology of hell than they were to a dimension wreathed in hungrier flames than the Krylock was. Maybe. Unless he was thinking of the shadow hounds that didn't have human forms. Different belief systems gave different creatures power, and Jake was supposed to learn them all so he could better handle different situations, but he had a bad habit of skiving off studying in favour of skateboarding.

Or sleeping, when he was forced to sit and read the books.

Some of the texts were just so boring he couldn't keep his eyes open unless Fu was giving him a running commentary about something.

"So why do you think those of us in Beacon Hills need protecting, Mr. Long?"

Jake grimaced. "Jake. And I might not know what's going on here yet, but I know there's something going on. Some outside help—some outside experience—isn't a bad thing, trust me." He hesitated. Aside from a brief tightening of the lips, Parrish's expression was still too carefully blank to tell Jake what he really thought of all that.

Okay.

He didn't need to be subtle when he was dealing with another magical creature.

"Look. The reason I'm here? Starting that fire? I had to. They were too weak to do it themselves, and they needed that flame to rejuvenate—and the ash, if you're wondering why I couldn't just act like a personal flamethrower." He sighed. Moving the phoenix would've been ideal, but he hadn't had that option. There hadn't been time. They'd been dying, and almost nothing they'd been saying had made sense to him.

Eichen House had come up too often to be coincidental, though, especially considering they hadn't been far from there. He'd have to go back to investigate that place, but he didn't want to go alone if he could help it. Hopefully, Fu's contacts would know something about it, if there was anything about it to know.

"Seriously," continued Jake, "phoenixes aren't supposed to be unable to call forth fire on their own. Being able to do that is kinda important for their whole thing. So fundamental magic failing like that? This is big, whatever this is. If I were you, I'd want help fixing this mess."

Parrish was still studying him, but the frown lines were getting more pronounced again.

"I can't just walk away from this," Jake said slowly, "even if you don't want my help. I can try to give you space if you want nothing to do with me, but I can't promise our paths won't cross. I— I don't want this to be happening here, whatever it is, but I need to figure out why it's happening so I can stop it and make sure it doesn't start happening anywhere else."

He also needed to make sure it wasn't some remnant of the Huntsclan finding a way to claw its way back into this reality. That would be just his luck, if Rose's memories hadn't been the only things to return. He'd thought initiates like 88 and 89 would be the worst of his problems on that front, but if the lull had only been because they'd been gathering power? Not great.

The Huntsclan had never been the only hunters out there, though.

And since the Huntsclan strongholds, complete with weapons and knowledge, hadn't disappeared with them, staying stubbornly where they could be found instead of being rewritten….

Yeah, walking away wasn't an option even if he wanted it to be.

"You get that, yeah?"

"This isn't the first time Beacon Hills has faced threats," Parrish said, his tone still too careful for Jake's liking. "You don't need to involve yourself in our danger."

"It's not just you guys. I mean— As far as I know, right now, it is. But it might not stay that way. And even if it is just you guys and wouldn't become a bigger problem? It's still what I do. I'm the American Dragon. Protector of the magical world, yo. It's not just a fancy title."

Parrish blinked, and Jake doubted he was even trying to hide his surprise now. "Dragon?"

"You're a hellhound and you think being a dragon is weird?"

"How did you—?"

"How doesn't matter," interrupted Jake. "What matters is getting to the bottom of this. It might be out of your jurisdiction for your day job, but it ain't outta mine." Not unless he counted school as his day job, but it wasn't like Am Drag business kept to convenient hours.

Okay, Parrish was definitely frowning now. "You're a teenager."

"I'm the Am Drag." Jake put the appropriate weight behind his title but wasn't surprised when it seemed to be lost on Parrish. Of course, if his powers had skipped his parents' generation, too—or maybe more than one—or if he was adopted and didn't know his magical family, there was no real reason for him to know about dragons and their responsibilities to the magical world.

…Except for the whole 'this isn't the first time Beacon Hills has faced threats' thing, which come to think of it the sheriff had also more than implied, so Jake was going to have to follow up on that if Fu hadn't gotten all the dirt on that already.

He'd also have to deal with the fact that at least one human here knew about the magical world, but whatever. If the guy was helping them instead of hunting them, Jake didn't have a problem with it. If the Dragon Council caught wind of it—which they might if the Huntsclan turned out to be involved (please no)—G could help him convince them to leave the guy alone.

(They'd left Rotwood alone, and he was arguably doing way more harm to the magical world as someone who wanted to expose it than someone like the sheriff who wanted to help protect it. The hands-off approach was deliberate, though. Probably. The fact that no one believed Rotwood on principle these days was one of the reasons the Dragon Council hadn't dealt with him, but Jake was pretty sure the main one was that if he changed his tune for no apparent reason, that would set off more red flags for those in the know than they could easily contain.)

"There's nothing I can say to convince you to stay out of this and stay safe, is there?"

"Yeah, no, I didn't come out here just to cool my heels."

Parrish muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Why is it always teenagers?" Jake let the remark slide.

For now.

He could follow up on it later if the names he'd gotten from the sheriff didn't turn up anything useful.

"So, uh, are you just gonna fill in the sheriff once I'm gone, or can we keep this between us?"

"Are people's lives in danger?"

"How do you expect me to answer that when I don't know what's going on?"

"As honestly as you can, given what you do know and what you suspect."

Jake sighed. "Fine. Bring him in now, then, and I'll tell him myself. But only if this whole arson thing can go away. And if you don't, y'know, try to charge me with anything else that some so-called new evidence conveniently fits or whatever. Fu's gonna kill me if he has to waste his potions covering this up. He didn't bring that many supplies. This is only supposed to be recon."

Parrish opened his mouth, stared at Jake for a few seconds longer, and then closed it for a beat before saying, "I think that can be arranged. Arson is a sore subject for some around here, but last I heard, they hadn't found any definitive signs of an accelerant."

Jake wrinkled his nose. "Dragon fire isn't that different from yours. It's dangerous if you're not careful, but you can learn to use it so you don't give yourself away. I mean, to hunters, anyway. This won't look like a natural fire, but it should look like an accident. And it's not like anyone got hurt."

Parrish gave him another long look that promised a flood of questions in the near future, and Jake had to stifle a groan at the mere thought of it.

"I'll get the sheriff," Parrish said quietly as he got to his feet.

"Great," Jake said without feeling.

Hopefully this wasn't a mistake.

He didn't think he'd get out of this without making a few, though, so if his biggest mistake was spilling the beans before talking it over with Fu? He'd take it. Besides, the sheriff had already demonstrated his ability to be subtle when he wanted to be. He seemed to be better at that than Jake was. That, if nothing else, worked in his favour.

And, consequently, in Jake's.

For when he had to explain all of this to Fu.

Maybe he should've tried to work a tit-for-tat thing into the terms to ensure that the flow of information went both ways (Fu was invariably going to give him an earful for not doing that), but these guys had already given him something to work with even if they hadn't realized it. Besides, if they wanted to protect the magical creatures that lived here half as much as Jake did, it shouldn't be a problem.

If it came down to it, Jake could use the phoenix as an example of why not sharing information could very much make it both their problems, since unnecessary death wasn't what either of them wanted—and if he hadn't happened to be around as a source of magical fire, unnecessary death was what it would have been.

Parrish wasn't gone long, so it must not have taken much convincing to get the sheriff to agree to Jake's terms. (He would've passed them along, right? Maybe Jake should've gotten that in writing….) Still, the sheriff didn't speak until Parrish had closed the door to his office behind them. Another point in his favour, really. He knew how to be careful. "I take it you two found common ground?"

Jake grinned. He couldn't afford to regret this, so he wouldn't. "That's one way of putting it."