Pinch-hit for the 2015 Teen Wolf Reverse Bang on livejournal. Since bangs, no matter which direction, are complicated to run, acknowledgement must go to chosenfire28 and the other moderators for running it. I bow to their dedication and skills.
Art Post: "Playing with Fire" at http: [/] archive of our [/] works [/] 4391702
Artist: jkivela/radlilim
Characters/Pairings: Jordan Parrish. Cameos by most of the pack, Derek Hale, and a couple original characters. / No pairings (although Jordan wouldn't be adverse to some slash-action with Derek).
Warnings: mild violence in flashbacks; canon-compliant, non-permanent character death.
Note: The art was created and I started writing before episode 1 of season 5 aired, so the only thing we knew about Parrish is that he survived being burned to death by Deputy Haigh. Meaning this could've been canon-compliant for an itty-bitty portion of time, but definitely isn't anymore. Cross-posted to my AO3 account.
They say the first time you do anything new is the hardest. For Parrish, the first time wasn't hard. After all, how hard was it to sit, hand-cuffed to the steering wheel, while a co-worker poured gasoline over you and then lit it?
Not hard at all.
Life-alteringly terrifying, but not hard.
What was hard was not killing Haigh afterwards.
Parrish had come to, naked and pissed, still sitting in the smoldering remains of his cruiser, and all he could remember was Haigh, putting in his earbuds so he wouldn't have to listen to his partner scream.
Jordan had died that night. He'd sat in the fire and watched his skin turn red, then black. He'd breathed in the flames and felt his lungs burn. He'd died—last breath, white light, the whole shebang. Then he wasn't any more. He wasn't dead. And he wasn't human either. He was a thing. A super-weird, supernatural creature who could survive being burned to death and he hated knowing that about himself.
He didn't want to be different. He didn't want to be weird. His brother was weird, with his green-hair, dermal piercings, and corneal tattoos. His parents were weird, with their alien conspiracy theories and hippy-beads left-over from the 70s.
Jordan was a cop. That was supposed to be the opposite of weird.
If he hadn't been a cop Parrish would've killed Haigh, and he would have enjoyed it.
