Fic rec!

The time is at hand! mcshep_match has begun, and I, for one, could not be more excited about the story Team Angst is launching with. Acidimia has one of the most brilliantly angsty premises I've ever encountered: John is captured by the Wraith and made a Runner. My heart starts to thud just at that, but it's what the author does with this premise that truly blows me away. I love the way this story details—beautifully and simply, with such bold, emotive, clarity of phrasing—both what John has to do to survive, and the lengths all of Atlantis goes to to get him back. There's some truly fabulous team interaction in here—with everyone acting like smart, compassionate adults (which is better than the show manages to do, a lot of the time). And under that, intertwined with that, is the relationship between Rodney and John, and how they both hold to it and fight for it and use it as the thing that keeps them going.

"He's learned how they fight, these hunter-Wraith, the particular arc and sweep of their bodies, the martial art of their bloodied craft. The defense that comes most easily to him is more graceful than they deserve, honed at Teyla's instruction, an Athosian dance to meet their blows and it's Ronon's strength he channels into hating them, into staying alive out of the spite and affection that run in his blood. He can't think of Rodney as he plunges his knife to the hilt into sinew and splintering bone, but he can live for him – live for Rodney and to kill for himself."

Go read (and vote for!) Acidimia.
*claps hands excitedly*