A/N - And number two...

Pain

Rodney knew he was no good with pain, his tolerance so low he complained about everything and anything troubling him. Even the tiniest thing caused so much grief that people soon stopped paying attention to his woes and became unsympathetic to his misery.

At least that's how it had been before Atlantis.

Now Rodney staggered over to a chair and held his arm across himself as he bled dark crimson onto his shirt. Dizziness enveloped him as he collapsed down and drew in a few shaky breaths.

Rodney was well and truly stuck. Knowing his injury could require infirmary treatment, but too afraid of what he might find if he checked it himself. The moment he'd slipped, he'd jammed his hand against his chest in shock, not having any time to see the laceration he'd sustained.

A niggling pain started. It didn't go away, but instead decided to make Rodney's day better by spreading like wildfire - a conflagration of agony without beginning or end.

Then an idea struck him, the only option in his impossible situation. "Sh-Sheppard!" he said into his radio. "I... I'm bleeding!"

"Where are you?"

"Labs."

Rodney winced and clutched his hand tighter to his chest. It felt like his finger was sliced open and hanging off, the all enveloping sting making his lips tremble.

John jogged into the room and over to Rodney, slowing down with a puzzled expression when he saw Rodney hunched over the desk with a grimace.

"Where are you hurt? Have you called Carson?"

"No. It's my hand."

"Let's have a look."

"N-no." Rodney held his hand firmly against himself, hoping the warmth of his chest would soothe the pain. "It's going to be really bad. I don't want to look."

John pursed his lips. "Alright. Turn away and stretch it out and I'll check it."

Rodney screwed up his face and slowly levered his hand away from himself and held it out with a grimace.

"Hmm."

"How bad is it?"

"It's pretty bad. Keep the pressure up and I'll be back in a sec with help."

Rodney lower lip trembled at the sharp bolt of pain going through his hand. He pressed it against his body with a barely suppressed groan. It was no wonder he was always sustaining serious injuries, as he was the only one doing any work around the labs in the evenings.

John returned and told Rodney to look away again and hold out his hand. Rodney gritted his teeth as a sticky object was wrapped around his finger and pressed down.

"There," John said, with a comforting pat on Rodney's back. "All better."

Rodney blinked his eyes open and slowly moved his head down to look at his damaged hand. It throbbed at him heartily and then the pain slowly, mercifully, began to diminish when he saw the thick plaster wrapped around his finger.

"You sure skinned it," John said, sounding impressed. "What were you doing?"

Rodney glanced down at the stuff on his desk. "Trust me to nearly amputate my finger using the only piece of paper on Atlantis."

John smiled at him, "Come on, it's getting late. Let's go get some takeaway from the mess hall, round up Teyla and Ronon and catch a movie before turning in."

Rodney gave his desk one last wistful glance and then his eyes drifted down to his finger, now sticking up like he was pointing at the ceiling.

"Okay," he said and left the lab with Sheppard to take his mind off his most recent trauma.

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A/N - Out of the 26 entrants, this won joint second place! My first attempt at a writing contest :)