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Current story progress and teasers
Several people whose journals I read are posting progress updates on their various stories. Seems a fine idea to me. Here's what I'm presently working on. Teaser clips (a few paragraphs each) are under cuts, so you don't have to read them if you don't want to be teased and perhaps slightly spoiled (but only slightly). Also, obviously, the teaser scenes are subject to change before the stories are actually posted.
"Ghost in the Machine"
Halloween story, using a combination of prompts from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spook_me's Halloween ficathon and from kodiak_bear's ghost challenge. I'm starting to think I won't have this one done by Halloween, but I intend to get at least a couple of chapters posted by then.
Current word count: about 13,000 words
Teaser:
Between one heartbeat and the next, it was there -- leaping out of the rain and the dark. Sheppard caught a glimpse of jaws wide open, revealing a double row of discolored and irregular fangs. He brought up the P90 but it was just so impossibly fast. It sprang four-legged, like a leaping dog, and its weight bore Sheppard down to the ground. His gun went clattering to the ground, spinning out of reach; claws ripped down his side in a blaze of pain. His head cracked against the rocks and stars burst in his vision, but still he was strangely clearheaded -- he could smell it, a musty wet animal smell with a heavy metallic overtone like old rotten blood -- he could feel the strange, unnatural heat of its body, like a furnace on top of him, flattening his chest and crushing the breath out of him -- sharp pain of claws digging into his arm -- bony spines on its body, pressing painfully against him -- he managed to get his free hand around one ankle, holding the claws away from his face, startled by the softness of the dark, velvety hair on its wrist -- but with one hand pinned and the other occupied, no hands were left free to protect his face, and the jaws opened over him, its rank breath washing across him, inches away --
A burst of automatic weapons fire barked in his ears, and bits of earth and rock spattered his face with a sharp sting. The creature's scream of pain was earsplitting at close range. It sprang away, the hot body vanishing as cold rain poured down onto him and burned against the wounds its claws had left behind. Sheppard gasped for air, willing his deadened limbs to move and pull him upright.
"Sheppard?" Rodney was leaning over him. "Sheppard, get up. Are you -- did it -- did I --"
"I'm fine." Never mind the hot stickiness down his side. He could move, and Rodney's damp hand helped haul him to his feet. He realized -- his brain taking its time catching up with events -- that it must have been Rodney who shot the animal ... without even hitting Sheppard. "Nice shooting," he said, and meant it.
"Nor Iron Bars a Cage"
Fic-a-thon story. The request was a hostage situation with John and Rodney.
Current word count: about 10,000 words
Teaser:
Sheppard looked up to see the Protector standing at the bars of the cell, flanked by two bodyguards. Just standing there, watching, a slight smile curving his lips. When he saw that Sheppard had seen him, his smile widened a little and he said, "Usually, it takes them a couple of days to die. I thought upon first seeing your friend that he was a weak person, someone who would succumb easily. I doubt if he'll last the day tomorrow."
Somehow Sheppard kept control of himself. He did not fling himself at the man on the other side of the bars. He said nothing, feeling all the muscles in his body knotting up like cables. He didn't think he'd ever hated anyone this much, not even Kolya, not even the Wraith.
"As much as I would love to see you beg for an antidote, there isn't one," the Protector continued in a conversational tone. "Once the drug is administered, that's the end. Watch your friend's death carefully, for you are also seeing your own if you do not cooperate voluntarily."
Sheppard unlocked his jaw enough to speak in a low, tense voice. "You are a dead man. I'm going to kill you."
"I doubt that very, very much." Turning briskly on his heel, the Protector gestured to his guards and strode away.
Sheppard tasted blood and raised his hand to his mouth, discovering that he'd bitten a hole through the edge of his lip in an effort to keep control of himself.
(as yet untitled)
Fic-a-thon story. The request was a friendship story focused on Carson and Rodney. I've just started this one, but I have the plot roughed out, including a grand-finale scene that I'm quite looking forward to writing.
Current word count: 1400 words
Teaser:
"John, what happened? Where are Carson and Rodney?"
"Dead," he said, and her stomach plunged and just kept falling, until his next words brought an abrupt halt to her burgeoning grief -- "All of them, my whole team, dead."
Someone had died, obviously -- he was splattered with blood from head to foot, and she didn't think it was his own. He was muddy and scratched up as if he'd run through a forest, but the only obvious signs of injury on him were a myriad of tiny scratches on his face and hands. Yet still, there was all that blood -- on his face, his clothes, even in his hair.
"John," she said quietly, holding out her hands, "Teyla and Ronon are sitting right over there. Where are Carson and Rodney?"
"Dead," he breathed. His eyes were huge -- no, she realized, it was the pupils, so dilated that none of the green was visible.
"The Light of a Fading Sun"
A fairly dark Season 2 AU in which the team fragments after the Seige. The interesting thing about this one is how it starts out generally sticking to the canonical sequence of events and then slowly spirals off into totally different territory as the characters' increasing isolation from each other pushes their lives in very different directions from the course of Season 2. Of course, this is also the story in which I discovered that I can't write dark and depressing to save my life. It always turns into a friendship story sooner or later.
Current word count: about 10,000 words
Teaser:
"He came to my quarters last night."
"Rodney?"
Sheppard nodded. "Wanted to convince me to give the project on Doranda another try. Says he thinks he can fix what the Ancients screwed up."
Elizabeth grinned a little, despite the grim set to Sheppard's jaw. "Well, that's Rodney, John -- he doesn't do things by halves."
"Elizabeth -- he doesn't care. About Collins' death. A man is dead, one of his people, and to him, it's just an interesting scientific puzzle. It's the outcome of an experience, something to mark down on a clipboard before he moves on to the next part of the experiment. He wants to get a Nobel Prize out of this, and he doesn't care who has to die to make that happen."
Elizabeth folded her hands atop her desk, putting the report aside to focus her mind on the problem at hand. She had seen Rodney's face when he'd come back from Doranda -- the raw pain in his eyes. Sheppard hadn't been there to see; he had been training a group of the new Marines, having left scientist-babysitting duties on Doranda to Lorne's team. "John, I don't think you're being fair to Rodney."
"Aren't I? I just feel like I never really saw him until last night, Elizabeth. The person that I thought I knew ..." He drew a deep breath and let it out, a bit shakily. "Either that person never existed, or doesn't exist anymore. The man I spoke to last night -- Elizabeth, I don't want that man at my back offworld."
Of all of these, "Ghost" will most likely start posting first (because I want to start getting it up before Halloween) but may not *finish* first.
"Ghost in the Machine"
Halloween story, using a combination of prompts from
spook_me's Halloween ficathon and from kodiak_bear's ghost challenge. I'm starting to think I won't have this one done by Halloween, but I intend to get at least a couple of chapters posted by then.Current word count: about 13,000 words
Teaser:
Between one heartbeat and the next, it was there -- leaping out of the rain and the dark. Sheppard caught a glimpse of jaws wide open, revealing a double row of discolored and irregular fangs. He brought up the P90 but it was just so impossibly fast. It sprang four-legged, like a leaping dog, and its weight bore Sheppard down to the ground. His gun went clattering to the ground, spinning out of reach; claws ripped down his side in a blaze of pain. His head cracked against the rocks and stars burst in his vision, but still he was strangely clearheaded -- he could smell it, a musty wet animal smell with a heavy metallic overtone like old rotten blood -- he could feel the strange, unnatural heat of its body, like a furnace on top of him, flattening his chest and crushing the breath out of him -- sharp pain of claws digging into his arm -- bony spines on its body, pressing painfully against him -- he managed to get his free hand around one ankle, holding the claws away from his face, startled by the softness of the dark, velvety hair on its wrist -- but with one hand pinned and the other occupied, no hands were left free to protect his face, and the jaws opened over him, its rank breath washing across him, inches away --
A burst of automatic weapons fire barked in his ears, and bits of earth and rock spattered his face with a sharp sting. The creature's scream of pain was earsplitting at close range. It sprang away, the hot body vanishing as cold rain poured down onto him and burned against the wounds its claws had left behind. Sheppard gasped for air, willing his deadened limbs to move and pull him upright.
"Sheppard?" Rodney was leaning over him. "Sheppard, get up. Are you -- did it -- did I --"
"I'm fine." Never mind the hot stickiness down his side. He could move, and Rodney's damp hand helped haul him to his feet. He realized -- his brain taking its time catching up with events -- that it must have been Rodney who shot the animal ... without even hitting Sheppard. "Nice shooting," he said, and meant it.
"Nor Iron Bars a Cage"
Fic-a-thon story. The request was a hostage situation with John and Rodney.
Current word count: about 10,000 words
Teaser:
Sheppard looked up to see the Protector standing at the bars of the cell, flanked by two bodyguards. Just standing there, watching, a slight smile curving his lips. When he saw that Sheppard had seen him, his smile widened a little and he said, "Usually, it takes them a couple of days to die. I thought upon first seeing your friend that he was a weak person, someone who would succumb easily. I doubt if he'll last the day tomorrow."
Somehow Sheppard kept control of himself. He did not fling himself at the man on the other side of the bars. He said nothing, feeling all the muscles in his body knotting up like cables. He didn't think he'd ever hated anyone this much, not even Kolya, not even the Wraith.
"As much as I would love to see you beg for an antidote, there isn't one," the Protector continued in a conversational tone. "Once the drug is administered, that's the end. Watch your friend's death carefully, for you are also seeing your own if you do not cooperate voluntarily."
Sheppard unlocked his jaw enough to speak in a low, tense voice. "You are a dead man. I'm going to kill you."
"I doubt that very, very much." Turning briskly on his heel, the Protector gestured to his guards and strode away.
Sheppard tasted blood and raised his hand to his mouth, discovering that he'd bitten a hole through the edge of his lip in an effort to keep control of himself.
(as yet untitled)
Fic-a-thon story. The request was a friendship story focused on Carson and Rodney. I've just started this one, but I have the plot roughed out, including a grand-finale scene that I'm quite looking forward to writing.
Current word count: 1400 words
Teaser:
"John, what happened? Where are Carson and Rodney?"
"Dead," he said, and her stomach plunged and just kept falling, until his next words brought an abrupt halt to her burgeoning grief -- "All of them, my whole team, dead."
Someone had died, obviously -- he was splattered with blood from head to foot, and she didn't think it was his own. He was muddy and scratched up as if he'd run through a forest, but the only obvious signs of injury on him were a myriad of tiny scratches on his face and hands. Yet still, there was all that blood -- on his face, his clothes, even in his hair.
"John," she said quietly, holding out her hands, "Teyla and Ronon are sitting right over there. Where are Carson and Rodney?"
"Dead," he breathed. His eyes were huge -- no, she realized, it was the pupils, so dilated that none of the green was visible.
"The Light of a Fading Sun"
A fairly dark Season 2 AU in which the team fragments after the Seige. The interesting thing about this one is how it starts out generally sticking to the canonical sequence of events and then slowly spirals off into totally different territory as the characters' increasing isolation from each other pushes their lives in very different directions from the course of Season 2. Of course, this is also the story in which I discovered that I can't write dark and depressing to save my life. It always turns into a friendship story sooner or later.
Current word count: about 10,000 words
Teaser:
"He came to my quarters last night."
"Rodney?"
Sheppard nodded. "Wanted to convince me to give the project on Doranda another try. Says he thinks he can fix what the Ancients screwed up."
Elizabeth grinned a little, despite the grim set to Sheppard's jaw. "Well, that's Rodney, John -- he doesn't do things by halves."
"Elizabeth -- he doesn't care. About Collins' death. A man is dead, one of his people, and to him, it's just an interesting scientific puzzle. It's the outcome of an experience, something to mark down on a clipboard before he moves on to the next part of the experiment. He wants to get a Nobel Prize out of this, and he doesn't care who has to die to make that happen."
Elizabeth folded her hands atop her desk, putting the report aside to focus her mind on the problem at hand. She had seen Rodney's face when he'd come back from Doranda -- the raw pain in his eyes. Sheppard hadn't been there to see; he had been training a group of the new Marines, having left scientist-babysitting duties on Doranda to Lorne's team. "John, I don't think you're being fair to Rodney."
"Aren't I? I just feel like I never really saw him until last night, Elizabeth. The person that I thought I knew ..." He drew a deep breath and let it out, a bit shakily. "Either that person never existed, or doesn't exist anymore. The man I spoke to last night -- Elizabeth, I don't want that man at my back offworld."
Of all of these, "Ghost" will most likely start posting first (because I want to start getting it up before Halloween) but may not *finish* first.
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BTW, love the icon!
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... and glad you like the icon; as soon as that scene aired, I knew I *had* to make an icon.
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And now you'll have to excuse me while I bounce excitedly. It's hard to type with the keyboard moving that much. LOL ;-)
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Oh no no, not at all! Actually, I feel kind of guilty right now for spending so much time on other stories when so many of the fic-a-thon ones are still unfinished. I just hate to put down a story while I'm actively working on it.
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almost THREE years now! :) if only they'd allow something like that to happen in the show, instead of the continual using of this weird (read: overused & unrealistic) inability as a comic relief point in at least three or four occasions every half year...*sigh*
but - yeah - awesome job on all of these teasers & i can definitely not wait to see more of each of them!!! ;) ~ur pal, Sharma
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LOL ... I actually just wrote a scene in "Ghost" where I explain Rodney's canonical inability to shoot straight as a sort of deliberate reaction to being surrounded by people who are really, really good at it all the time -- if he can't be the best, he doesn't even really try, and justifies it to himself with the lie that it's not worth doing. But, really, I find his incompetence in certain areas kind of endearing. He'd be dull if he was good at *everything*, after all ...
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