hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away
Man, why does the phone always ring right after I've taken a bite of my bagel?
*
I am just past my period, so I shouldn't be all emotionally weird anymore, but this morning on the bus, I got super-teary while listening to "Racing in the Street," which, admittedly, is a fucking depressing song, but still. I had to put on "Thunder Road" right after, and I had to convince myself that she got in the car and went with him, that she didn't turn into the crazy Mary in "Crazy Mary." Um. Yeah. I know it's ridiculous, because I'm sure Victoria Williams did not at all intend that connection to be made, but in my head, the woman in that song is the same Mary who didn't go in "Thunder Road," thirty years down the line. Sigh. On the other hand, maybe she didn't go crazy, and now she's the "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" in the Pearl Jam song. Which is still sad, but not tragic.
I'm not the only one who does this, right?
*
Anyway. Yesterday, svilleficrecs posted first lines from thirty of her stories. I am not sure why she did, but I thought it would be interesting [to me, at least] to post the first lines of the last thirty stories I've posted. So here they are.
Please bear in mind that any of these stories, which are linked, may contain spoilers for any aired episodes of anything (but no future episodes), though I don't think any of the actual first lines do.
Dean sees her, of all places, in the checkout line at Costco. [ Anyone Who Ever Had a Heart (spoilers for What Is and What Should Never Be)]
Dean turns the radio off and says, "So this church is haunted?" [ trying on my heart just like a crown]
"Be back later," Dean says when Sam pokes his head out from under the covers. [ The Boys of Summer (Hot Corner Rag)]
Steve barrels into the room and starts throwing stuff into a backpack while Sam is trying to nap. [ All the Roads That Lead You There (Mile by Mile Extended Dance Mix)]
Luna is used to waiting. [ Time Has Come Today (Love Is Patient Remix)]
Dawn grits her teeth as Buffy pours peroxide over the cuts on her arm, and hisses when it bubbles white against infection. [ The Time Around Scars (The Sisters Under the Skin Remix)]
Okay, the thing you have to understand is that this is weird, even for them. [ Wishing Well Surprise (The Mecha-Meta Mix)]
When Dean comes in, Sam's standing at the sink, washing dishes and singing to herself. [ Favors]
Dean doesn't start the serious worrying until they're three days out of San Francisco, and Sam still hasn't said anything more than, "No," (You hungry?) or "Yeah," (I'm ready to call it a night, Sammy. How 'bout you?), speaking only because Dean refuses to read answers into his silence. [ any courage is a fear]
Sam orders the thing in a fit of insomnia-induced online shopping. [ In Through the Out Door - co-written with luzdeestrellas]
Dean doesn't know this, because Sam's never told him, but sometimes, Sam likes to fuck guys. [ Winners Use the Door]
He doesn't plan it. [ Like Gold to Airy Thinness Beat]
Sam's nowhere to be found when Dean comes home. [ somewhere in between]
"So Simon is saying he hit Hollweg in the face with his stick because Hollweg gave him a concussion?" [ Let's Go Make Out Up in the Balcony]
On a ship the size of Serenity, secrets bloom like wildflowers; desires are hidden, words unspoken, left to echo in barely-silenced thoughts and quickly repressed feelings, a low-murmuring tide that rises, rises, rises, building to a crescendo that crashes into River's skin and blood and brain like a tsunami, until she's saturated, wet with longing for things she didn't know she wanted, doesn't know how to have. [ Bloom and Grow]
Sam wakes up, and the first thing he realizes is that someone else is in bed with him--there's an arm draped across his belly and a pair of feet tucked against his calves. [ Give Me a Leonard Cohen Afterworld ]
This is worse than the penguins, Mal thinks, and he hadn't thought that was even possible. [ Faith Based Initiative]
He sees her from the corner of his eye sometimes, a flash of sleek black hair and chunky black boots hovering in his peripheral vision. [ Every Day a Little Death]
The glass of the windshield is warm against Dean's back, holding the heat from the day, and the May air is humid against his skin. [ Beggars Would Ride]
Sometimes, these days, Dean really is ready to pack it all in, to drive until the land ends, get out of the car and keep walking, out into the water. [ The Forces Ranged Within Us and Against Us]
Dean lets Sam help him into the shower without complaining too much, shoulder wrapped in plastic in a futile attempt to keep it dry. [ Breathe Out, So I Can Breathe You In]
She's a hundred miles south of Duluth, heading someplace warm, when the phone rings. [ Couldn't Stand the Weather]
The job didn't go smooth. [ The Girl Who Says Remember]
The whiskey in the flask has a cheap metallic flavor, and Sam's pretty sure that's the whiskey Dean's chosen and not the flask itself (wouldn't they make it so that didn't happen? He's pretty sure they would.), but he drinks anyway, because Dean offers and they've had a long day, a long week, a pretty long fucking life, and the alcohol won't make it go away, but it takes the edge off, makes everything hurt a little less, seem a little further away than it does when he's sober. [ The real green thing will come]
They drive straight through for hours, west, angling a little south when they hit Madison, the sun the only benevolent thing at their backs. [ The Heart Where I Have Roots]
The Saturday after that night at the asylum, Kat asks her dad to go shooting again, starts spending her time down at the range, shotgun smooth and cool in her hands, the world disappearing as she focuses on the target, small and far away. [ Thou Unknown I Know]
No, it's wrong, Dean says. [ The Near Occasion of Sin]
Cristina understands, knows enough to leave him alone, even if she were the touchy-feely type, which, thank God, she's not. [ Viaticum]
The first time they fuck, he doesn't know her name, doesn't give her his. [ Fifteen Percent Concentrated Power of Will]
He likes it when Tyra comes to see him. [ As a friend, as a known memory]
*
Wow, I never write in past tense anymore. Also, I have a tendency to not name the characters right away, which I am trying to get better about. And the only time a story starts with someone waking up is when you're supposed to think something is hinky, so at least I've finally internalized that rule that if you start a story with someone waking up, it's possible the reader will think the whole thing is a dream. Or whatever the hell it is - I know what I mean, even if I can't articulate it. Yeah, I'm a writer. *snerk*
I mean, the thing where starting a story off with a character waking up can throw into doubt whether or not the events of the story are actually happening, or whether the character is dreaming or hallucinating them. So it works for "Give Me a Leonard Cohen Afterworld," because Sam does wake up in a strange place.
The breakdown looks like this: 21 SPN, 2 Firefly, 1 HP, 1 BtVS, 1 Sports Night, 1 Grey's Anatomy, 1 FNL, 1 FNL/Firefly crossover, and 1 SPN/BtVS crossover. Four of those 21 SPN stories feature Sam as a girl. *facepalm*
~*~
And here are first lines from some works in progress (all titles subject to change at whim), all of which I hope to finish eventually:
After the third time Dean's phone rolls over to voicemail, Sam's sick of the sound, has to grit his teeth against the urge to throw his own phone against the wall in frustration. [untitled Sam POV of WIaWSNB; currently gen, but who knows?]
The memory hits hard, like a vision, and she's pressing Jo up against the bar, one hand at her throat, the other stroking at the soft skin her belly, the implied threat of it making Sam sick as she remembers. [And if that mockingbird don't sing, aka, the sekrit incest baby AU]
"And that's when the lights started flickering, and the dresser went skidding across the floor." [Watching the Detectives; the Dean/Veronica crossover]
Snow is falling in dirty greywhite specks that look like ash flaking off the heavy grey sky, when they pull into the rest stop. [Ashtray floors, dirty clothes, and filthy jokes; the year in the life story; gen]
He waits until they're on the road to spring this case on her. [She Got Down But She Never Got Tight; the girl!Sam + strippers story; Wincest]
Sam takes a sip of her drink--tonic water with a twist, though if anyone asks, it's a vodka tonic and she's slightly tipsy--and eyes the room. [currently untitled Five Six Ways Dean Winchester Sleeps with His (Non-Existent) Sister story; was originally titled What Is and What Should Never Be. Sigh. I may yet go back to that.]
The break finally comes, just like he's always known it would, has been waiting for since the moment Sam got back into the car with him that first night in Palo Alto. [you've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above; Wincest, futurefic]
The car catches his attention--1969 Chevy Malibu, mint condition, parked right there on the street in front of the house. [This Thing of Ours; gen, casefile]
When Dean gets back to the motel, there's a girl standing in the middle of the room, wearing one of Sam's shirts and nothing else. [Some Things Are Gonna Cost You Extra; Sam wakes up a girl; Wincest]
Dean hesitates over the lease. [I Got Some Beer and the Highway's Free; futurefic, either very slashy gen or outright Wincest]
He calls Ellen more than he's ever called any woman--more than he's ever called anyone whose last name isn't Winchester. [This Is Not a Love Song; Dean/Ellen set just before BUaBS begins]
*
I should probably be afraid that half of these feature Sam as a girl, but I have given in and accepted my place in fandom as that crazy chick who turns Sam into a girl all the time.
On the other hand, I am amused at how many titles I've cribbed from Springsteen.
Also, I am sad that I do not have the Dean/Catholic schoolgirls story started. I must get on that.
~*~
*
I am just past my period, so I shouldn't be all emotionally weird anymore, but this morning on the bus, I got super-teary while listening to "Racing in the Street," which, admittedly, is a fucking depressing song, but still. I had to put on "Thunder Road" right after, and I had to convince myself that she got in the car and went with him, that she didn't turn into the crazy Mary in "Crazy Mary." Um. Yeah. I know it's ridiculous, because I'm sure Victoria Williams did not at all intend that connection to be made, but in my head, the woman in that song is the same Mary who didn't go in "Thunder Road," thirty years down the line. Sigh. On the other hand, maybe she didn't go crazy, and now she's the "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" in the Pearl Jam song. Which is still sad, but not tragic.
I'm not the only one who does this, right?
*
Anyway. Yesterday, svilleficrecs posted first lines from thirty of her stories. I am not sure why she did, but I thought it would be interesting [to me, at least] to post the first lines of the last thirty stories I've posted. So here they are.
Please bear in mind that any of these stories, which are linked, may contain spoilers for any aired episodes of anything (but no future episodes), though I don't think any of the actual first lines do.
Dean sees her, of all places, in the checkout line at Costco. [ Anyone Who Ever Had a Heart (spoilers for What Is and What Should Never Be)]
Dean turns the radio off and says, "So this church is haunted?" [ trying on my heart just like a crown]
"Be back later," Dean says when Sam pokes his head out from under the covers. [ The Boys of Summer (Hot Corner Rag)]
Steve barrels into the room and starts throwing stuff into a backpack while Sam is trying to nap. [ All the Roads That Lead You There (Mile by Mile Extended Dance Mix)]
Luna is used to waiting. [ Time Has Come Today (Love Is Patient Remix)]
Dawn grits her teeth as Buffy pours peroxide over the cuts on her arm, and hisses when it bubbles white against infection. [ The Time Around Scars (The Sisters Under the Skin Remix)]
Okay, the thing you have to understand is that this is weird, even for them. [ Wishing Well Surprise (The Mecha-Meta Mix)]
When Dean comes in, Sam's standing at the sink, washing dishes and singing to herself. [ Favors]
Dean doesn't start the serious worrying until they're three days out of San Francisco, and Sam still hasn't said anything more than, "No," (You hungry?) or "Yeah," (I'm ready to call it a night, Sammy. How 'bout you?), speaking only because Dean refuses to read answers into his silence. [ any courage is a fear]
Sam orders the thing in a fit of insomnia-induced online shopping. [ In Through the Out Door - co-written with luzdeestrellas]
Dean doesn't know this, because Sam's never told him, but sometimes, Sam likes to fuck guys. [ Winners Use the Door]
He doesn't plan it. [ Like Gold to Airy Thinness Beat]
Sam's nowhere to be found when Dean comes home. [ somewhere in between]
"So Simon is saying he hit Hollweg in the face with his stick because Hollweg gave him a concussion?" [ Let's Go Make Out Up in the Balcony]
On a ship the size of Serenity, secrets bloom like wildflowers; desires are hidden, words unspoken, left to echo in barely-silenced thoughts and quickly repressed feelings, a low-murmuring tide that rises, rises, rises, building to a crescendo that crashes into River's skin and blood and brain like a tsunami, until she's saturated, wet with longing for things she didn't know she wanted, doesn't know how to have. [ Bloom and Grow]
Sam wakes up, and the first thing he realizes is that someone else is in bed with him--there's an arm draped across his belly and a pair of feet tucked against his calves. [ Give Me a Leonard Cohen Afterworld ]
This is worse than the penguins, Mal thinks, and he hadn't thought that was even possible. [ Faith Based Initiative]
He sees her from the corner of his eye sometimes, a flash of sleek black hair and chunky black boots hovering in his peripheral vision. [ Every Day a Little Death]
The glass of the windshield is warm against Dean's back, holding the heat from the day, and the May air is humid against his skin. [ Beggars Would Ride]
Sometimes, these days, Dean really is ready to pack it all in, to drive until the land ends, get out of the car and keep walking, out into the water. [ The Forces Ranged Within Us and Against Us]
Dean lets Sam help him into the shower without complaining too much, shoulder wrapped in plastic in a futile attempt to keep it dry. [ Breathe Out, So I Can Breathe You In]
She's a hundred miles south of Duluth, heading someplace warm, when the phone rings. [ Couldn't Stand the Weather]
The job didn't go smooth. [ The Girl Who Says Remember]
The whiskey in the flask has a cheap metallic flavor, and Sam's pretty sure that's the whiskey Dean's chosen and not the flask itself (wouldn't they make it so that didn't happen? He's pretty sure they would.), but he drinks anyway, because Dean offers and they've had a long day, a long week, a pretty long fucking life, and the alcohol won't make it go away, but it takes the edge off, makes everything hurt a little less, seem a little further away than it does when he's sober. [ The real green thing will come]
They drive straight through for hours, west, angling a little south when they hit Madison, the sun the only benevolent thing at their backs. [ The Heart Where I Have Roots]
The Saturday after that night at the asylum, Kat asks her dad to go shooting again, starts spending her time down at the range, shotgun smooth and cool in her hands, the world disappearing as she focuses on the target, small and far away. [ Thou Unknown I Know]
No, it's wrong, Dean says. [ The Near Occasion of Sin]
Cristina understands, knows enough to leave him alone, even if she were the touchy-feely type, which, thank God, she's not. [ Viaticum]
The first time they fuck, he doesn't know her name, doesn't give her his. [ Fifteen Percent Concentrated Power of Will]
He likes it when Tyra comes to see him. [ As a friend, as a known memory]
*
Wow, I never write in past tense anymore. Also, I have a tendency to not name the characters right away, which I am trying to get better about. And the only time a story starts with someone waking up is when you're supposed to think something is hinky, so at least I've finally internalized that rule that if you start a story with someone waking up, it's possible the reader will think the whole thing is a dream. Or whatever the hell it is - I know what I mean, even if I can't articulate it. Yeah, I'm a writer. *snerk*
I mean, the thing where starting a story off with a character waking up can throw into doubt whether or not the events of the story are actually happening, or whether the character is dreaming or hallucinating them. So it works for "Give Me a Leonard Cohen Afterworld," because Sam does wake up in a strange place.
The breakdown looks like this: 21 SPN, 2 Firefly, 1 HP, 1 BtVS, 1 Sports Night, 1 Grey's Anatomy, 1 FNL, 1 FNL/Firefly crossover, and 1 SPN/BtVS crossover. Four of those 21 SPN stories feature Sam as a girl. *facepalm*
~*~
And here are first lines from some works in progress (all titles subject to change at whim), all of which I hope to finish eventually:
After the third time Dean's phone rolls over to voicemail, Sam's sick of the sound, has to grit his teeth against the urge to throw his own phone against the wall in frustration. [untitled Sam POV of WIaWSNB; currently gen, but who knows?]
The memory hits hard, like a vision, and she's pressing Jo up against the bar, one hand at her throat, the other stroking at the soft skin her belly, the implied threat of it making Sam sick as she remembers. [And if that mockingbird don't sing, aka, the sekrit incest baby AU]
"And that's when the lights started flickering, and the dresser went skidding across the floor." [Watching the Detectives; the Dean/Veronica crossover]
Snow is falling in dirty greywhite specks that look like ash flaking off the heavy grey sky, when they pull into the rest stop. [Ashtray floors, dirty clothes, and filthy jokes; the year in the life story; gen]
He waits until they're on the road to spring this case on her. [She Got Down But She Never Got Tight; the girl!Sam + strippers story; Wincest]
Sam takes a sip of her drink--tonic water with a twist, though if anyone asks, it's a vodka tonic and she's slightly tipsy--and eyes the room. [currently untitled Five Six Ways Dean Winchester Sleeps with His (Non-Existent) Sister story; was originally titled What Is and What Should Never Be. Sigh. I may yet go back to that.]
The break finally comes, just like he's always known it would, has been waiting for since the moment Sam got back into the car with him that first night in Palo Alto. [you've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above; Wincest, futurefic]
The car catches his attention--1969 Chevy Malibu, mint condition, parked right there on the street in front of the house. [This Thing of Ours; gen, casefile]
When Dean gets back to the motel, there's a girl standing in the middle of the room, wearing one of Sam's shirts and nothing else. [Some Things Are Gonna Cost You Extra; Sam wakes up a girl; Wincest]
Dean hesitates over the lease. [I Got Some Beer and the Highway's Free; futurefic, either very slashy gen or outright Wincest]
He calls Ellen more than he's ever called any woman--more than he's ever called anyone whose last name isn't Winchester. [This Is Not a Love Song; Dean/Ellen set just before BUaBS begins]
*
I should probably be afraid that half of these feature Sam as a girl, but I have given in and accepted my place in fandom as that crazy chick who turns Sam into a girl all the time.
On the other hand, I am amused at how many titles I've cribbed from Springsteen.
Also, I am sad that I do not have the Dean/Catholic schoolgirls story started. I must get on that.
~*~