I’ve now been tagged by both @hobbitsaarebas and @kauriart, so here goes. I’m supposed to do the first lines from my last 10 or so fics and see if there are any patterns. Like @kauriart, I’m also going to be contrary and do WIPs, because why not?
I’ll tag @birdscameflying [that last one’s for you :)], @earlgreyer1, @ponticle, @aurlyn, @littlexabyss, @draco-illius-noctis, and anyone else who feels so inclined.
Honestly, I’m not seeing a lot of patterns, except that I don’t start stuff with one-sentence paragraphs nearly as often as I feel like I do. I guess I do a decent job of starting in medias res? That’s about all I’m seeing, and even that pattern I’m not confident about. I feel like I wander too much to say I start in the middle of the action.
Anyone else see patterns? Or want to campaign for what I work on next?
Bull x Cullen x Dorian, "Every Breath You Take" (yes, I know, every stalker fic in the world uses that title, shhhh)
The police car at the corner is Dorian's first clue that something is wrong, but he doesn't think much of it. He checks his speedometer to reassure himself he isn't going fast enough to be worth pulling over, then promptly forgets about the whole thing. The streets around his condo are narrow, and made narrower by the cars parked along both sides, and Dorian lives in fear of the day some idiot child darts out into the street in front of him.
Cullen x Dorian, "Somebody to Love"
The idea is so brilliant that when it hits him, Dorian stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk, letting the evening commuters break around him like a particularly irate stream around an oblivious boulder. More than a few of them curse at him, but he doesn't care, too absorbed in the beauty and perfection that is The Idea.
It gets title case immediately, of course, because it's that brilliant, and Dorian laughs softly to himself as he turns it over, looking for flaws and finding none. In fact, the more he looks at it, the more perfect it seems, until he's grinning at the people around him even as they swear at him.
Bull x Cullen x Dorian, "Dance With Me"
The third time someone steps on Cullen's toes, he almost calls it quits. His more cynical side looks around the crowded club and demands to know who would notice if he did, but he promised Alistair he would at least make an effort, and thirty minutes nursing the same glass of Coke doesn't count. Even Cullen will admit that.
Bull x Cullen, "Hollow Men"
In his dreams, he walks through familiar halls again. Not Kinloch Hold as he last saw it, but Kinloch Hold as he first saw it, as he saw it every day for months. Senior enchanters debate with each other, and apprentices bend their heads over books in the library, and under it all is the steady beat of templar boots on stone. His boots, but not alone, never alone, always with another step matching his.
Bull x Cullen + eventual Bull x Cullen x Dorian, "Up to Zero"
They really should be unpacking. Boxes are still piled three deep in the living room, the kitchen is bare except for two cups and a stack of paper plates, and half their clothes seem to have gone AWOL. The bedframe is half assembled--but only half--the mattress lying on the floor of the bedroom where it's been since they got here yesterday. They made it as far as getting sheets on the mattress last night, but that's about it.
Saemus x Ashaad, untitled
When the Winters come for him, Saemus freezes, and for an awful moment, he feels as though he can see the future: Ashaad dead, Saemus hauled home for his father to look at him in bafflement and disappointment, and these vultures treated like heroes instead of criminals. He can see it so clearly it makes him shake, acid burning at his throat, and there's nothing he can do about any of it.
Cullen x Dorian, "You Can't Make Me Behave"
It's the first word Dorian thinks when he walks inside. The air is alive in a way that's partly the music thumping in his chest and partly the bodies moving on the dance floor and partly the raw bite of magic that prickles along his skin. It's each of them and all of them, and it's more than anything Dorian has ever felt, even in other clubs. This one is alive, and it draws him in, silences the last doubts and fears that have been whispering in the back of his brain.
