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ineffable. (adj). too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.

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"Hey, Todd?" John asks, leaning in the doorway of Todd's study.

"Hmmm?" the Wraith Commander replies absently. The awkward pause that follows prompts Todd to look up from the data tablet he has been absorbed in for the past hour. He tilts his head to the side and waits.

"Well, uh, y'know...," John trails off.

Todd puts the tablet away and lays his hands on the tabletop. "No, John Sheppard, I do not know."

"It's just that... I don't think anyone's ever going to be okay with... well, y'know," John says again, gesturing vaguely to himself as he ambles closer.

Todd sighs heavily, his gilded stare piercing straight through John's recently yellowed eyes. Pushing his chair back and raising himself to his full height, Todd lifts his chin to appraise him. John has to fight the urge to squirm under such intense scrutiny.

The Wraith moves around his desk and stands before John who finds himself drawn into what he had always thought of as an Athosian embrace. Standing this close, their foreheads resting together, John can see his mutated self reflected in the inky depths of the Wraith's dilated pupils. Words like mutant and monster roll through his mind. A resolute hum rumbles from deep within Todd's chest.

"I see nothing for anyone to be okay with," Todd snarls.

John feels a prickling sensation and closes his eyes. He's still so new to all this, but Todd always makes sure to hover at the edges of his mind, giving John the choice to go to him. John wills his mind forward to where an image forms in the darkness. What he sees is his own face, only his scales are lit up with a sharp ice-blue glow of health, his partially white hair like some kind of ethereal halo. His new, alien eyes are not really yellow at all but are struck through with striations of bold impish lemon and wicked clever lime, a warm amber radiating from beneath. He can feel Todd's pride in the way John has risen to claim his place in the hive after such a short time. But this is quickly replaced by the Wraith's smug satisfaction at being right about the worthy human he once claimed as 'brother'.

Todd speaks quietly, cool breath ghosting across John's lips. "It is really quite simple; you are not a mutant or monster at all. You have merely found a form that can finally keep up with the exceptional creature you have always been."

Huh. And just like that, John's burden eases a little and he can't help but grin and nudge his forehead against Todd's. "Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yes," Todd hisses, smiling back at him. And right there, the very place where their minds are linked, he hears that familiar dual-toned voice speaking his name. This is something he has heard Todd say countless times before, but he is only now truly hearing it for the first time and it is something far greater than he could have ever possibly realised.

The Wraith has layered the words with new meaning; they feel like brother and hive and noone-left-behind, they whip along the borders of his mind with the sound of a dart trailing in their wake, and he can almost taste salty sea air on his tongue...

His name is soaked through with such significance that it now emanates with everything that he is. Sometime in the past, Todd had transformed his ordinary name into a metaphysical declaration and every time he spoke that name out loud, he was saying so much more. John closes his eyes and leans his mind against the Wraith's, listening to Todd's deep, rich tones as they resonate through him, roaring over and over -

- John Shepparrrd. -