do not need to bake for 15 minutes; could use a little more sugar and probably a little more lime juice. otherwise, delicious.

Since Loki's magic had stopped working and he was no longer able to teleport away whenever he desired, Thor had been indulging in his brother's company even more than usual. He hovered and worried, poked and prodded. The Asgardians were an interesting spectacle in their interactions with one another, Tony thought. It was a bit like watching two dangerous animals play-fight at the zoo.

That afternoon a furious shouting match broke out over which movie they were going to watch- it had ended in blows. Thor tipped over the couch with Loki still on it and was yanked by the ankles off his feet into a rolling tackle that smashed three lamps, the glass doors of the entertainment center and Steve's favourite coffee mug in one fell swoop. It was over in a span of two minutes and by the time anyone had arrived to intervene they were picking each other up off the floor.

"Everything okay in here?" Steve asked them, looking down sorrowfully at the remains of his mug.

"All is well," Loki wiped his nose with the back of his hand, leaving across it a shiny red smear. "My apologies, Thor. I am afraid that my temper has been short of late."

"It is I who should be sorry, brother," said Thor, pulling a long shard of glass out of his forearm. "You are unwell. It is only natural that you should be ill-humoured. I should not have let anger get the better of me. We shall watch 'Toy Story 2' as you wished."

"Be nice," Pepper says.

Tony huffs in his ear. "I am."

"Are not." She clucks her tongue. "Embarrassing your newest employee with a charge of public lewdness is not a good way to build morale."

"My morale's higher than it's been in a while," Bruce offers, in case that changes her mind.

aka my life

The day after the fall is day one of everyone else’s life without Sherlock Holmes in it. It’s a morning with nothing extraordinary to say, and Molly lies in bed awake, waiting for the sun to rise.

This very way of recording our world, this tension between an automated camera and a human who seeks meaning, reflects our modern experience. As social beings we want to matter and we want to matter to someone, we want to count and be counted, but loneliness and anonymity are more often our plight.

The sign at Sommer Park, 10 miles northwest of downtown Peoria, proclaims that, "Swearing, fighting, and bad attitudes will not be tolerated." Yet here I stand before an artificial skateboard terrain that should not by any stretch of necessity exist. My attitude is currently quite bad.

"Fuck," I swear, and punch the sign.

"What's gotten into you?" Loki asks. His voice is smooth and soft. "Are you drunk?"

"No," Thor says, then internally berates himself. If only he were capable of dissembling, that would have been the perfect excuse. Too much drink, a lapse in judgment, a conveniently blank memory come morning… Loki would let him get away with it. He wouldn't question.

But Thor is a terrible liar (that's Loki's territory), and anyway it's too late now.

He doesn't think he's ever needed to think about protecting Sherlock. He thinks about Sherlock unsure about how long he's been interested, when Sherlock is so rarely uncertain about anything at all, and then he wonders if it's even possible to find the bottom of something that lives in your roots.

"Jim?" he says, incredulous. "What are you doing here?"

Jim presses a finger to his mouth, wordlessly telling him to be silent. He extends his other hand, palm up. He's smiling, eyes crinkling at the corners. Behind Sebastian, something rumbles out a low growl. He turns his head towards the sound, but doesn't break eye contact with Jim.

"Do you trust me?" he asks, and he sounds amused.

DELICIOUS. used green lentils and white kidney beans and skipped the cilantro and it was still f-ing amazing.

Outside, the rain drummed heavily against the windows. Sherlock would have hated that, or reveled in it, depending on his mood.

Thor frowns, and it's his disappointed frown, the one Loki has come to know well. The expression is still juvenile and unbecoming. It makes him look like a sad polar bear. Certainly nothing a prince of Asgard should be wearing in public.

Sherlock is pale and bandaged and breathing, and if this is all they're going to leave with, it's enough.

"Talking to your lady love there?" Menolly asked, jarring Mirrim out of her reverie.

"Just thinking," Mirrim replied with a laugh.

If there were more female green riders, they could stick together and stick up for each other.

If there were lots more, maybe they wouldn't have to.

Somehow the idea of having someone else around, someone else hanging out with Matt… he hadn’t liked the thought of it. Not even Chen. But this was turning out pretty okay. Chen and Matt had figured out early on that they both loved some terrifying Japanese video game where you rolled a huge sticky ball around it picked up paper clips and school girls. They were practically best friends at this point, and it made John unexpectedly...happy. It made him feel like Matt had sort of been welcomed into his life in some official way.

He could remember marching quick-step with his legion, 15,000 paces in a day if they were feeling lazy, and yet enough energy to make camp and sing bawdy songs at end of day. He had been free, then, free and young and careless with his appreciation of the gifts of health and life, and now he understood what he had taken for granted.

Below him, his leg cramped, barely 50 paces on, and he panted shallow through his teeth but kept on. He had known pain; he had learned to live with it, work through it. He could keep on.

As they finish the poem together, Will looks up and meets Bran's eyes, there in the center of the fires of the future. Their single present fire glitters in his white hair and the stubble of his white beard, and if the afternoon sun had left him looking burnished, the bonfire leaves him radiant, a glowing echo of his once-glowing father that brings an ache to Will's heart so sharp and wild that he cannot help but snatch in a breath to keep himself from bowing to Bran as Pendragon once more.

"Jane's been dreaming," Barney told him as he twirled a piece of cheese on a toothpick around absentmindedly.

"Hmm?" he responded not really paying attention, his mind across the room where Simon and Bran were talking by the fireplace.

"Jane," Barney repeated, and when he glanced over he was smirking at him as if he had known where his mind had been; Will fought down a blush. "She's been dreaming again. Well," his face became considerate, "weirder dreams than the rest of us, that is. And that's setting a pretty high bar."

Sofie started down the road to Nebraska. Her feet ached.

The old tarot deck was sitting on the Babylon sign. She left it.

They take Bucky 'cause he hits ten targets in ten minutes. They take Steve 'cause Bucky asks.

"Waste of shoe-leather and lead," Colonel Phillips mutters, before signing his papers.

Bucky's quiet, and Steve looks over; they're still side-by-side, which means he's closer than Steve wants right now, and his expression's calculating. "What?" Steve asks.

"'Would have made a good headline,'" Bucky repeats. "Not 'don't be disgusting' or 'I would never,' nothing like that."

And damn it, Steve's face had been almost back to normal. "I--" he says, before realizing he has no idea what to say next.

After an excruciatingly long moment that was probably only a few seconds, Bucky moved closer, close enough to rest his head on Steve's shoulder. "It better be me. So help me God, Rogers, if it's some other guy I'm gonna kill you," Bucky murmured. Steve could feel Bucky's breath on his neck. His improved heart skipped a beat, the way it always used to and never had since he'd changed.

He leaned over to see what Steve had been working on. He'd thought it might be a map or something, but it turned out to be his sketchbook, currently containing a hastily-drawn light-and-shade study of Dernier hunched over the fire.

"Hey, that's not bad," Bucky said. "You know, one day, if you work really hard, you could be an artist."

"Ha ha," Steve said, rolling his eyes. "Sleep well?"

"Not really. I'd say I feel like death warmed up, but I'm not warmed up yet. How come you didn't wake me?"

"Well, you looked so peaceful lying there. Like a big stubbly baby."

"You've got such a beautiful way with words."

"Gentlemen," she says, and it's perhaps the bravest thing she's ever done, "my quarters, nineteen hundred sharp."

"Yes, ma'am," they respond in unison, Steve snapping to attention and Bucky giving her a more leisurely salute.

Given his luck, of course it was neither. Instead it was a stupid ring. Well maybe not stupid, it did look kind of cool, like it was made of some kind of green glass or plastic, but when he picked it up it felt like metal, which, okay, was really cool. Much cooler than that decoder ring he'd found in his Sugar Bombs that time. It didn't exactly take a six-year-old's lack of impulse control to immediately jump to the next logical step of actually putting the ring on, but it didn't exactly hurt the lack of thought process.

For the second time in about as many minutes, everything went green again, but a different kind of green, somehow cooler and warmer at the same time, almost like relaxing on a grassy hill with Hobbes on a sunny afternoon.

"Billy," Harry calls and it's unusual enough for Harry not to call him 'Elliot' that Billy drops his leg, stretching it out as he leans around the doorframe.

"What?"

Harry has a funny look on his face. "Dawkins says there's a boy downstairs to see you. Michael someone? Since when do you have friends who aren't - ? Hey, where are you going?"

They cock their heads in tandem too, both looking her over like they can see right through her. It’s freaky enough when Cass does it, but at least she’s Batgirl and not just a dangerously hot guy with the bluest eyes she’s ever seen and--

Get a grip, Steph. Focus. “Hi, sorry, phone call.”

“Everything okay?” Dick asks and she completely knows why every single gymnastics mother in the country wants their kid training with him. That’s so not fair.

Cass just arches an eyebrow and frowns. That’s not freaking fair either.

Axe Cop is not here. It is his birthday for a month. He is too busy eating cake to answer your questions.

If you are wondering whether the cake has a candle of him on top, the answer is yes. That is his favorite food.

He didn't want to jinx it. Not, he thought, that he believed in that sort of thing, but— He remembered what Mr. Murry had said, over dinner last week, about what he was working on: quantum particles, and twinned pairs, and how he if could alter the tilt of one particle the other would tilt to mirror it, no matter how far away, and would do it instantly, in utter defiance of Einsteinian physics.

The kiss after that, Betty is thinking of sandwiches.

Your people used to praise you; later they would curse you. Now, you fear that they have forgotten you.

Gods, gods, everywhere, and not a wish to drink.

His dead wife still hasn't moved, standing straight and still at the side of his bed, her cold hand still on his forehead.

In his dream, the thunderbirds are flying high, out of reach. Part of his dream is set back in Scotland. Laura does not appear at all.

“Your shirt is pink,” Bones says, because dear sweet God in heaven, it is pink.

“I know. I tried to do the laundry the other night while I was schwasted, and like half my shirts are faded to pink now. I kinda like it, though, you know?”

No, Bones doesn’t know. So he decides to just forge boldly on ahead. “Your collar is—why is your collar sticking up?”

“I accidentally put starch in the machine instead of detergent, man, and now it won’t go down. But doesn’t it look awesome?”

No, it doesn’t. But Bones has noticed the worst part now, and the stupid pink shirt and the idiotic collar are the absolute least of his worries. “What the hell did you do to your pants, Jim?”

Jim follows Bones’ horrified gaze down to where his uniform pants end, a few inches below the knee.

"You don't understand," Mal says. "I wasn't a failed suicide. I succeeded."

"You are a special case in many ways," Yusuf says.

The next morning, he wakes up to find Sherlock poring over crime scene photos at the desk as though nothing’s happened. Maybe nothing has.

John tries hard not to look at the door to Sherlock’s bedroom, but he knows he’s not fooling either of them.

delicious

note to self: break cornbread down into smaller cubes before making stuffing.

DELICIOUS, but almost sets house on fire.

Here is a memory: your father praised you for your bravery and touched you open the arm, just above your tattoos. You felt his hand despite the cold and exhaustion; he looked you in the eye, and he told he was proud of you. You were Esca, son of Cuneval, bearer of the Blue Shields of the Brigante, and he wanted you to hold the hill for him.

Esca, across the fire. Esca with his eyes full of black hate.

But also: Esca under the sun. Esca washed clean in sea air, with his pale skin flushed, and his grin sudden and wide, and his blue eyes wiped clean of every sad or savage thought his heart has ever cradled.

"Get dressed, for the love of everything, get dressed."

Loki huffs. "I think I shall tell mother you slept with me, and then threw me out of your room, and denied everything." Loki disguises intent so well that Thor cannot tell if he's offended, amused, or scheming at Thor's expense. But he's still overwhelmed with horror at the thought.

"Your life will likely be shorter, and more painful with me in it." Loki's voice is quieter. There's admission, rather than warning in his tone. As if, even he, is not sure why they're fighting. But he cannot - or refuses - to stop.

"Then I accept it gladly," Thor says with a nod.

"You are intolerable," Loki bites out.

Visions swam before Thor's eyes now. Odin's first grandchild, born with snakes for hair or scales over her face.

"What will it look like?" he demanded, cornering Loki at the first opportunity.

"What will what look like?" Loki asked, lazily.

"The child, man."

"I'm sure I don't know, Thor. Did Frigga know what you would look like?"

Thor growled. "You know well what I mean. Will it have eight legs? Will it be a FISH?"

"You do have odd thoughts, brother," Loki said.

they were good but geez, I've baked others that were just as delicious.

Loki tries, sometimes, to throw his mind out while waking, but he is still too wrecked to try anything of the kind again, no matter how he quiets his mind. Instead he and Jane work on the Bifrost equation, and at night Loki goes to the only home he has, where the stars shine in familiar now but the bed still feels strange, and he dreams in nightmare fragments that he cannot remember on waking.

It is not the life he wanted. Even for all the acceptance his mortals have shown him, it is not a life he loves. It is also a life he has made from the ruins of the old one, and he might even one day have come to enjoy it; but it lasts almost no time at all.

The days lengthen, the sun brightens, as he slides south through the shadows. Long, twisting, grey roads stretch across the whole of the countryside, marking it, mapping it. Nothing like Asgard, nothing like anything in the other eight realms. He thinks of the deep freezing lakes, so blue and so dark; the dust rising off the packed-dirt training grounds, dancing in the sun; the stillness of the great halls in early morning, when even the servants were still abed.

No, nothing like Asgard.

Thor swishes the wand with a flourish of his arm, and with a great crack of thunder a bolt of lightning arcs from the tip to strike a tree on the opposite side of the meadow. Seeing that said tree is now on fire, Loki sighs and conjures water to douse the flames while Thor laughs.

"This is a marvelous toy you've constructed, brother," Thor says, giving Loki a congratulatory slap on the back with his other hand. "It's almost a match for Mjölnir."

Loki smiles, and his grip tightens on the elder wand. "Almost."

I'm interested in books that are nominally fantasy, but steal scifi tropes, and vice versa. Suggestions?

NOT QUITE A RECS LIST, but things to look for when I'm superbored and can't think of anything else to read.

The next day Sherlock had a smallish case on his website, and the day after that John said, delighted, “Hey, you’ve got a little shoot coming up!” He grinned at Sherlock, who eyed him askance. Sherlock waited until John went away, then he got up and looked at his dill. He did indeed have a little green shoot coming up. It sent an inexplicable but giddy thrill through him. It was just a plant, he told himself. Plants grew on their own; Sherlock hadn’t even done anything.

The human skull is as unique as a fingerprint. It is possible, given accurate knowledge and the right software, to rebuild the facial features of its owner long after the flesh has rotted away. Sherlock does not need this. He could pick out John's skull from thousands.

"Ah, Loki," Thor said, "Sit, and tell me of your troubles. Tony mentioned that you had enchanted the birds of the forest to sing for you."

"I did no such thing!" Loki defended himself, just as Tony said, "It was all very romantic."

He tries to breathe steadily. In and out. This isn't the first time he's had a target painted on him, just the most prolonged. And this time Sherlock's next to him, under the same threat. And now Sherlock's not just his incredibly annoying flatmate whom he's only known for weeks; somewhere between having that bomb strapped to him and grabbing Moriarty by the throat, his brain has slotted Sherlock into place as his closest, dearest friend, worth dying for.