Stargate: Atlantis
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Summary: he built himself a wall with the thorn of words
Notes: This is a remix of lavvyan's Thorn Wall.
Thanks to Sheila and T.W. Lewis for the beta, and to lavvyan for letting me play with her story.

Thorn Wall
remix
by Night Spring

Once there was a boy called Rodney, and he was very, very, very smart.

But people did not understand how he was so very smart, and so they called him ugly, and weak and small and loud and irritating and obnoxious and coward and all sorts of other mean, ugly things.

And Rodney picked each hurtful word and polished them against his razor-sharp mind until they turned into finely pointed thorns. And bit by bit, he built himself a wall with the thorn of words, and the wall grew tall and thick around him until no one could hurt him any longer.

Then one day, there came a prince who was unafraid of Rodney's wall, who touched the thorns with a dainty silver dagger, and each thorn he touched turned into a beautiful rose petal.

And Rodney loved the soft and fragrant petals, but where they bloomed they left gaps in his wall. And he tried to shore the gaps with more sharp words, but the prince kept dancing ahead of him, tapping more and more of Rodney's thorns into petals. And so they kept up this race of thorn and dagger for a long while, until one day there was a gap large enough for the prince to step through.

But Rodney gathered all the petals and stuffed them into the gap, and they turned into crystal-clear glass, on which the prince's dagger bounced harmlessly, its fine edges useless against the smooth hard surface. The prince struck the glass with his dagger again and again and again, but the dagger made nary a scratch in the fine, clear glass. And the prince collapsed in despair before the wall of thorn and glass, while Rodney watched, safe and untouched.

But then the prince tossed aside his dagger and grasped at the wall with his bare hands. And the thorns tore into them, dripping deep red blood like tears onto the glass.

And the glass melted.

The prince stood before Rodney, offering him his bleeding hand. Rodney looked at the prince, and at his wall of thorn and word.

And reached out.