Belated is better than not at all... and I so deserve any belatedness after completely forgetting to review your story! I have no good excuse for that one.

I have like this personal list of things I must write into fics, and for some bizarre reason, scientist-abducting-tentacles was one of them. I'm not sure that worried ActionHero!John will ever get old for me, and the McShep snark is eternal!

and the doing bad things to McKay, Just 'Cuz (it's not our fault he hurts so good...)

He does! If his lip didn't do the little woobie tremble when he realizes he's about to die, when he's trying to be brave, or when he realizes that hey, people are more than kind of fond of him -- well, it'd probably still be fun, but maybe not to the level it currently is.