#analyzing my word count like legit have a spreadsheet i'm gonna try to use to keep track of

[ilkkawhat]

first line, last 20

Guidelines: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20,  just list them all.) Choose your favorite opening line, tag some friends!

tagged by @nade2308​ (much appreciated 💜)

as with the last tag game, I’m not gonna tag anybody but if you want to do this feel free to say I tagged you. 

If it’s a multichap, I’ll post the first line from the most recent chapter. I’m also bending the rules and posting basically the first paragraph cause idk. I’m an asshole like that.

(and wow. haven’t written more than 20 all year)

1. Bleeding Love (Macgyver)

They find out in the sandbox.

Jack’s the first to realize it, though he doesn’t quite fully define it the first time Mac runs off going against direct orders. The Wunderkind is a magnet for danger even though in years to come he’ll be blamed as the danger prone one always slowing them down, but it’s when Mac finds himself cornered by four armed and dangerous criminals that he’s almost sent him home in a box sooner than the thirty-two days Jack had left at the time.

2. Every Breath You Take (CSI)

He has no time to recall the chainset of circumstances that led him to this moment. No time to think, really no time to even feel the assault on his body, and yet...he can.

Creaking plastic stretching across his face, trapping his screaming mouth in a suffocating muzzle that reeked of his hot breath. Condensing fogs and droplets daring to blind him more than his wildly burning eyes as his fingers claw at the invisible force pulling him back.

3. A Night That We Can’t Replace (CSI)

There are a lot of things that changed for Nick in the summer of 2005.

A burial that he’s still digging his way out of, his hands blindly reaching out for anything, anybody for him to grab onto with desperate fingers and a pounding heart that hasn’t stopped beating no matter how much damage was done to it.

Lucky for him, plenty of people were reaching for him, too.

4. Death by a Thousand Cuts - Ch. 2 (CSI)

There's no warning, not that there ever really is when disaster strikes.

No dark clouds swirling in the distance, no sense of finality in a season’s worth of cases told over twenty-two weeks.

It’s just an ordinary day.

5. Stranger in a Bar (CSI)

Nick’s sprawled out on his half of the booth, waiting with casually spread wings as he hawkishly observes Greg ordering their next round of drinks from the bar, leaning over the counter and even pointing out Nick’s favorite whiskey. He often doesn’t go for the top shelf but tonight he needs something with a bit of a bite.

6. You Take the Breath Right Out of Me (CSI)

“I don’t know man, it’s like Warrick was carrying the entire case. Felt like I was just a lowly CSI collecting evidence, and I couldn’t even do that right! Missed that...damn spot on the panties.”

7. Specimen Stokes - Ch. 10 (CSI) 

“Warrick, look, there’s just not enough evidence—”

“Not enough evidence? Jim, how is this not enough?”

Warrick points to the screenshots from the footage of what he feels is the most incriminating piece of evidence he has. Greg Sanders waltzing into the police department.

8. Body in Motion (CSI)

He’s missed this, the high coming off of solving a case.

The high coming off of being alive.

The high soaring far above ground.

9. Reversed (CSI)

“Nick.”

He could not move any faster as the anchors of his feet drag across the tile of an empty hallway. He’s leaving one home for another, no adventures in between. He’s tired.

Of so many things.

“Nick!”

He stops. He turns. He listens.

He owes Warrick at least that much for jumping off a cliff with him.

10. To Call for Hands of Above (CSI)

It doesn’t happen until they actually become “friends.”

Well, “friends” by Nick’s standards—and he had long been assuming that’s what they were all along, ever since the first day they worked a case together and discovered they had similar interests, similar tastes in humor, a similar spark in their eyes for justice and wanting to do their job and do it right.

But Warrick seemed to close off a bit of himself at first, which wasn’t apparent until something had endangered his heart.

Nick saw it coming.

11. Separate Ways (Macgyver)

There’s one reason and one reason only Jack and Mac would allow themselves to be apart for long times at long distances, and that reason was something that even all of the infinite science in Mac’s brain, all of the infinite wisdom in Jack’s heart couldn’t even explain.

12. Astray (CSI)

“Boy’s not even safe in his own bed.”

Nick breathes through his nose, his teeth grinding in a clenched jaw. His eyes haven’t left the boy’s body since they walked into the room, and his eyes don’t even meet Catherine as her voice grows more distant and disoriented.

13. Public Enemies, Private Lovers (CSI)

Having separate shifts may have been the best and worst thing to happen to Nick and Greg’s relationship.

Best in the way that it was easier to hide, after the lab had been remodeled and the walls to DNA were becoming more transparent, it was harder for Nick to hang around without attracting suspicion.

He still remembers the time Grissom caught him leisurely leaning against the counter, reeling a similarly laid back Greg towards him with a re-telling of a tale that he can’t quite remember.

All he remembers is the way he had caught Greg in his web and Greg didn’t seem eager to get out.

14. First Flight - Ch 2  (CSI)

Even though he thinks he’s ahead of the curve, his innocence shattered at an early enough age for him to get a glimpse outside the shelter of his youth, Parker Stokes will be the first to admit there is still a lot to life he doesn’t understand.

One of those things is his father’s love for flying.

15. What’s going to happen to me now? (CSI) 

“Let me out.”

He couldn’t say the words at the time. Could only choke out a literal cry for help, though there were plenty of words that his brain was firing—and missing—but those three words in particular were just some of the few pleading thoughts he had while he was still enclosed in a glass coffin—one that was ready to collapse at any given second—why didn’t they see that? Why did they all stand on top of it? Why didn’t they open it immediately just to give him some air, just brush the damn ants off, no extinguisher needed.

He didn’t understand why it took so long to get him out.

16. Goosebumps (CSI)

Working graveyard shift, it’s rare for them to get a chance to actually celebrate the nightlife that Las Vegas has to offer, let alone on a holiday such as New Year’s Eve that is the most celebrated night out of the three hundred and sixty five that occur within a year.

17. Fire Away (CSI) 

A splash of cold water gives him a quick refresh on his clammy, pale face but it’s not enough to pull him out of his state of shock that he’s denied being to everybody who’s placed their hand on his shoulder, asking if he’s okay.

The same shoulder with a pinched nerve that his head keeps...twitching towards.

18. Found - Ch. 2 (CSI)

He rubs his fingers against the temples of his forehead, brain on autopilot circling the same repeating numbers that appear in the ten-page long phone record. His eyes are straining and the edges of his periphery are stretching away so that he has to squint to keep focus. He wishes he had brought his glasses as a yawn escapes his lips. He’s also realizing just how hungry he is as his stomach grumbles, when a familiar voice completely breaks his waning concentration.

“Here, figured you might need a little snack while you do your homework.”

19. It’s Not Like Christmas At All (CSI)

It’s like there’s something infectious in the air, some cosmic force driving against him that was making this year far more difficult than ever before.

Around this time last year, the team was pulling names out of a hat. Making plans for a party in the break room to celebrate not just as a team, but as a family.

This year, there’s been no such talk and he was semi-reluctantly making plans to visit his real family in the Lonestar state.

The first year he’s gone since Warrick passed.

20. There is Just One Thing I Need (CSI)

The scents and tastes and general ambience of the holiday season seemed duller that year, for both of them. Last year they had ridden high on their first Christmas together, as a family, giving Parker the best first Christmas they could give their bundle of joy and feeling a true warmth in each other’s company for the first time since their first night of passion together.

But even Christmas in California could get so cold.