The cannon's thunder can't prevail...

[allfireburns]

Because newredshoes is a bad influence... have a meme. You know that meme where I post first lines of some of my stories and you write new stories with those lines? Yeah, it's that one. Except... I really don't feel like going through my story catalog and clicking on every single story, so all these first lines? Are from unfinished fics in my GoogleDocs (and a couple from various notebooks). Feel free to change names/pronouns/etc. to suit, if you like.

"This is our year." (S60)

It's a dance, the two of them. (Chess)

There is something to be said for dying. (DW/Sandman)

"You know, for 'Nowhere', this looks a whole lot like 'Somewhere'." (Original)

Things do not go as planned. (BN)

Jack's familiar with silence. (DW)

Five months and twenty-three days into the year of hell on earth, Martha Jones stopped running. (DW)

"Does he really think he can get away with that?" (DW)

He keeps dreaming of running. (DW/Chess)

"You want me to take care of this?" (S60)

The forest is forbidden after dark. (Original)

It was funny, the things people didn't notice. (Original)

She supposed music would sound better to her ears if she'd never heard magic. (Original)

If you'd like to try to get me to write something for you, feel free to ask! I can't guarantee anything, because apparently my right brain has taken off for Santa Fe, but I will try!

Comments

and it's even still DW/Sandman!

[alligatorade.livejournal.com]

There is something to be said for dying – after all the unpleasant gory business, at least. Not that Jack is planning on subscribing to the Death of the Month Club, but sometimes, it’s all right to have those few moments of peace.

Those moments are longer on the non-living side of things, too. Jack’s body may be taking a quick break from its day-to-day vocation of walking, talking, eating, breathing, screwing, and shitting; but the rest of him goes on a bit of a metaphysical jaunt.

“I won’t remember this,” he says to the little goth girl who is always there beside him. Ghosts pass them by as they stroll through the shadowy streets of Cardiff, except that it is really Jack who is the ghost and the shadows that are reality. “I never remember. Maybe I’d be a little more eager to get back if I remembered.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she says, and grins up at him. “It isn’t like you need to rush. We have pretty regular appointments as it is, don’t you think?”

She looks like a teenager, a little slip of a thing who never quite got out of that punk rock phase. She makes him feel like a lecherous old man (which, of course, he is). And then again she makes him feel so very young, as if he is only a flash in the pan to her. As if he is a tiny speck tossed on the dark, deep tides of time.

“You’ll grow into it,” she says affably, and pokes him in the ribs. “Time to go. I’ll see you again.”

“It’s a date,” he calls after her, but she is going, going, gone. Jack gasps to life on the cold hard pavement, and the girl is an echo of a story of a dream someone else once had.

Time flies, as time is wont to do. Ianto and Gwen become memories of faces and stories, favorite songs and bars and what they liked for breakfast. There are other teams, and other friends, and other lovers, and Jack loves them all, and all of them eventually leave him, never to return. Even the Doctor flickers out of Jack’s life for good one day.

The arrow of entropy is impervious to threats, bribery, cajoling, or prayer. Earth dies eventually, and Jack moves on. After that it is only a scarce few billion years before the last stars blink out forever, and all the remaining matter in existence begins to slowly cool. The universe is in the throes of heat death, and, to his complete lack of surprise, Jack finds himself continually dying along with it.

“So,” says the girl, standing beside him upon nothing, looking out over the emptiness that remains. “You’re kind of putting a damper on my plans, you know.”

“Oh?” Jack raises an eyebrow at her. “How so?”

“The universe is dying. Maybe you’ve noticed?” She waves a hand. “I ought to be locking the place up for the night. But you’re still here.”

“Aww. You noticed.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and grins a grin that has gone more or less unchanged through the millennia. “Sorry, sweetheart, but there’s not much I can do about the situation. I’m as stuck here as you are.”

“Are you?” She cocks her head to the side, studying him curiously. “You really have grown into the years, you know. Every last one of them. I could choose to die – I think you’d make a pretty good me. Not too many responsibilities around anyway these days.”

“I would,” he says, and means it. He isn’t sure, though, whether it’s for her or for himself that he would take this on. Her eyes, her smile, the arch of her neck and the swing in her step – he’s fairly sure he would do anything for her. He would love her till he died, if that day could even come. But this universe, too … he’s lived here his whole life, after all. And it’s still too soon to say goodbye.

“So serious,” she says, and giggles. “Actually I’m kind of fond of the old place, too, when it comes right down to it. And it really does tend to surprise you when you least expect it. Which is pretty much the definition of a surprise, I guess. What do you say – do we wait around and see what’s next?”

Jack bows gallantly and offers her his arm, and together, they begin to wend there way through unreality. “I say, pass the popcorn. There’s got to be something good in store.

And so there was.