recs and links

“You must be Pepper Potts. You are very tall. I like your shoes. You could probably kill someone with those heels. Come in.” / He turned and walked away. She followed after him, her shoes echoing loudly in the cavernous space. / “Virginia,” she said, hurrying to catch up. “Virginia Potts.” / He stopped, suddenly and she nearly ran into him. “Are you sure? ‘Cause I thought Obi said ‘Pepper’. I like Pepper. Pepper is cute, it’s fun. It sounds like a 1930’s detective’s girlfriend. Pepper is the reason you got this interview.” / “Pepper is a nickname,” she explained. “You can call me Pepper, if you want, sir.” / “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “That would be completely unprofessional. I’ll call you Miss Potts.” Pepper's job interview. Adorable.

“Live with it, Captain. You got any idea of the paperwork Starfleet’ll make me fill out if you die on this godforsaken tin can? I’m keeping you alive till you’re eighty.” / “Fine, mom,” says Jim, and McCoy scowls. / “No more swords.” / There’s always more swords. Adorable look at life on the Enterprise from McCoy's POV.

fantastic look at the parallels between Sam and Dean's s4 arcs.

It’s kind of strange, being friends with a woman, with no sexual charge underneath it. Jim doesn’t have that much experience in making friends. Especially not with a woman. But Bones is cranky and sarcastic, and she can trash talk him all day long, but underneath the gruffness, he knows that she likes him. Knows she respects him, and it’s more than mutual. Excellent girl!Bones/Kirk story - they're BFF and something more. ♥

girl!McCoy pegs Kirk. *glee*

Wonderful look at the crew of the Enterprise, through the eyes of their new captain. Great Kirk voice, too.

Just like Palo Alto, only the fire is blinding and cool, and Dean has to work harder, use his full body weight to shove, muscles in his arms straining, pulling Sam towards the crypt door. In Palo Alto, he'd been able to lift Sam. *sniffle* Oh, boys... Lovely, achy coda to 4.22.

Humans would've named the planet New Earth and the places things like New Africa or New Russia. Vulcans did no such thing; they named the planet Vik: the well in the desert. They named the continents Ashv'cezh, Laktra, and Vrekasht: Revenge, Grief, and Outcast. Lovely meditation on how the Vulcans might rebuild.

"Gonna stitch me up?" asks Kirk. / "That's the plan," says McCoy. / "Without anesthetic?" / "You see any anesthetic?" asks McCoy. "If it makes you feel any better, it won't hurt worse than anything that's already happened to you." / "Somehow that's not very comforting," says Kirk, wincing as McCoy begins to stitch. After a diplomatic mission goes wrong, Kirk, Spock and McCoy wait in a damaged shuttle for the Enterprise to pick them up. Lovely, funny look at the growing friendship between them.

Hot, cute girl!Kirk/Bones story.

Kirk slouches in his chair and sighs. McCoy will give him this; the man is a champion at slouching. There’s something about the way he slouches that seems to be saying, ‘I could be sitting straight, but the universe just couldn’t handle the awesomeness of me being fully upright in this chair.’ It’s a lot to say in just the way he sits. It’s impressive. Ahahahahahaha! Kirk tries to be an authority figure, with hilarious results.

Sam has always prided himself on Not Freaking Out. Dad hands you a Glock and says be careful not to shoot your brother when you take down the closet monster? Well, either you freak out or you don't, and Sam had not. Adorable post-Nightshifter coda in which Dean is, well, Dean and Sam is certainly not freaking out.

Dean didn't think he would ever have been in a position where Sam having boobs wasn't the worst thing about a curse. A funny, sweet twist on the usual "one of the boys gets turned into a girl" trope.

“Why’d you come to me?” / “Because I thought you would let me.” / “And if I hadn’t?” / Anna takes a moment before she answers. “I never thought it through that far.” / Dean rolls his eyes in disgust. Achingly lovely look at Dean in the aftermath, from Anna's POV.

All the traveling without hunting makes Sam nervous. As if he's guilty of shirking something. As if he's forgotten something. As if he's forgetting. Achingly gorgeous look at Sam on the road as he makes his way to Stanford.

Time moves forward. Some things change: other things don't. That's how life is, when the world doesn't end. Oh, I needed that after 4.21. Sam and Dean, after it's all over, finding each other again. Oh, boys...

Highly enjoyable SPN/HP crossover, where the war against Voldemort isn't over and while Dean's on a hunt (while Sam's at Stanford), he runs into Luna and ends up teaming up with her on the search for a horcrux. Really wonderful characterization and interaction between them (a little British for Dean in places, but not too jarring).

Sam and Dean, in the aftermath of averting the apocalypse. Oh, boys. *smishes them*

Adorable Middleman vid

It scares her sometimes how little she can get enough of Dean, and it terrifies her to think about what that means for the rest of her life. Lovely bit of girl!Sam/Dean, just prior to her leaving for Stanford.

Kids are disappearing, so Dean goes undercover to find out what's taking them. Lovely and melancholy.

Kentucky has a Derby, Sam has a birthday, and Dean has a betting philosophy. Sigh. A happy moment before Sam leaves for Stanford. Oh, boys...

Outside the sky is the same steel grey of the tray that housed the body, and Dean is still too pale. Sam wants to know what it was, wants to know why. Wants to know if he remembers now, if he remembers being torn apart, having his heart ripped from his body. If he remembers choking on his own blood and how long it took to die. / It's not fair that Dean won't tell him. Dean did it for him and won't tell him anything, denies that he remembers, pretends the nightmares are nothing. / Dean did it for him and he won't let Sam help at all. Sharp, heartbreaking story set after Yellow Fever; good look into Sam's head in early season 4.

From last year's big bang, an engrossing SPN/Angel crossover featuring John teaming up with Kate Lockley on a hunt. Nicely done - feels true to both characters.

It's lovely to think about all the people Sam's helped helping him out in their own ways, while he's at Stanford.

Soft, slow, lovely first time fic. (Wincest, rated R, but I think it's a pg-13 at most)

THERE ARE AS MANY DEREKS AS THERE ARE POSSIBLE FUTURES. John knuckles sleep out of his eyes. "That's a lot," he says out loud. INFINITY IS A LOT, says the intelligence. John, on the run with Cameron (and John Henry), and he keeps sending Derek back. Fascinating and fantastic. And not a little chilling.

John still see echoes of Cameron everywhere. Not just in the face of Allison, which he can barely stand to look at; a face so full of emotion and movement that it grates on his nerves, sends shudders of wrongness down his spine. The girl from Palmdale is a constant reminder that Cameron stole Allison’s skin, that she is (was) a changeling, a kind of advanced Frankenstein that was only ever crafted after living flesh. It troubles him that even after everything, he still considers that body Cameron’s, that somewhere deep and visceral, he feels that Cameron’s right to that shape and form supersedes Allison’s own. Chilling, perfect look at John in the world after the s2 finale.

"I don't know how I'm doing it," he says. His shoulders are stiff as he shrugs. "Some kind of subconscious suggestion, maybe? All I know is the world is suddenly bending over backward to give me what I want." Dean snorts and says, "Dude. If these are your secret desires, you're even more boring than I thought." Aw, boys. Sam's powers come with an unexpected side effect they both have to deal with. Lovely. (wincest)

Here’s the thing: Dean really likes Bruce Springsteen. It’s a terrible thing to admit for someone who wears a battered leather jacket and drives a Chevy Impala and has this Midwestern drawl thing goin’ on that he can’t seem to get rid of, although he’s also the first to admit he’s never tried too hard, but the fact is that liking Springsteen makes him, as Sammy would put it, a walking cliché of an American blue collar working class guy, and Dean hates being a cliché. Dean, in a record store, musing about music and life.