browngirl

It should be 20, but I am incredibly bored today and thus doing this for both Star Trek and NUMB3RS, so I decided to do only sixteen each.

"Professor Ep-pes?" Charlie hears behind him, in a light tenor voice with a Russian accent.
Drabble first lines need to work extra hard, so this one is front-loaded with as much info as I could cram in.

When they are introduced, Pavel is relieved to be told he isn't expected to pronounce the Mathematician's name; it informs him that no humanoids could, not even Lieutenant Uhura, because their sound production methods are simply unsuitable, being respiratory-system voice boxes and simple percussive symbologies.
Oh, this one's long, probably too long (I love semicolons too much) but it does set up that Pavel is talking to someone non-humanoid.

George was too damn beautiful, Chris Pike thought, glaring down into his foamy beer.
This plays off the story summary, which is "Kirk's too damn beautiful, Christopher Pike thinks at least twice in his life. " It also starts setting up when this part happens; in the movie and what I've read of the novelization so far (I have to read the whole thing soon) Pike is always called 'Pike' or 'Christopher'. 'Chris' is more informal, younger. I would've called him 'Topher' but he's, um, not a Topher (my internal Pike made such the face at that, let me tell you.)

Winona always remembers the moment.
I meant this first line to both refer to a specific moment and also to reach forward indefinetely into Winona's life after that moment. And it (hopefully) sets up the questions of "what was that moment and why does she remember it?"

"C'mon, boy," Pike growls into Jim Kirk's ear, and gets a laughing little gasp and the faster, harder writhe he wants.
Set the characters, commence the porn!

It is not the first time Lieutenant Sulu has been hurt on a mission.
This is scenery setting, more than anything else. By saying "It is not" rather than "It's not" I hoped to begin to convey Pavel's non-native-English-speaker voice.

Drowsing on a narrow shelf of a bed with Jim's arm and leg slung possessively across his body, it occurs to Leonard that it's been a month now.
This is a tiny bit clunky, I admit, but it sets the scene and is a pretty nice mental image as well. It even starts setting up that this is an AU, or at least not on the Enterprise, because that ship presumably has beds a bit wider than a narrow shelf.

This isn't them.
This one is dictation, really. I thought, 'So, Lieutenant Sulu, here you are in this awful situation, what are you thinking?' and this is what he told me.

Cadet Jim Kirk sprawls on a grubby mattress, blindfolded, bruised, and exhilarated.
Oh, Jim. Using the word 'Cadet' is a bit of a cheat on my part; he does think of himself as a Starfleet Academy cadet, but it's not quite as central to his identity yet. But it did set the 'when' of this story nicely, and the 'exhilarated' lets the reader know that Jim is not having a bad time here.

The first time was an accident. Jim swears.
I did write this first line knowing that anyone reading it would've read the story summary, so they'd know just what progression Jim's about to relate the first iteration of. I put "swears" in present tense, though the scene is in past, to convey an impression of hearing this as One Of Jim's Stories.

"Pa'shlee," Pavel gasps, "Pa'shlee, hurry, fuck me, motherfucker, fuck me..."
Title check and voluminous swearing, and it's pretty obvious from the get go what's going on.

"Captain!" Sulu shouted into his communicator as he crashed through the dense undergrowth, his apologetic twinges at crushing unknown plants long since drowned out by alarm at Kirk's calls for help.
This is all scene-setting, and a bit clumsy. I wanted to convey that this is Sulu, who would feel a *little* bad at smushing plants he hadn't even gotten to study yet, but is way too practical to spare more than a smidge of regret when he thinks his Captain's in danger. (This story was less polished than it might have been -- I love story challenges too much.)

The most pulse-poundingly scary aspect of this is Pavel's silence, his still face as he locks the restraints around Hikaru's wrists.
The first line is the plotbunny in this case. When I thought of this story I thought of this picture which

magickalmolly kindly showed me, and that still face as he leaned over Hikaru in bed, and my brain just lit on fire.

Nyota has never seen Gaila sick before.
So often my first lines are scene-setting. But this one works, even if it's utilitarian.

When Jim finally makes it back to his quarters, his console is beeping insistently.
What I like about this one is the 'finally', with its implication of "and NOW the console adds ONE MORE THING to what was a full damn day.' I actually wanted a punchier verb than 'insistently' but didn't come up with one, and decided it was a little too early in the story to roll out the profanity.

McCoy always feeds the kid first.
I need to stop blushing long enough to say something sensible about this, really. That 'first' is just so ... profane, in context.