This is my life

But see, that's where the chosen family comes in for me - as he develops his relationship with the team, that part of him softens a little bit, also, I think, there's the fact that he's the military commander of Atlantis; sometimes he just doesn't get to make the suicide runs anymore

Oh, agreed; he does learn - which is why I cited the pilot, because everything afterwards is a journey away from there. But in an AU in which he carries less responsiblity, or hasn't found his own little family yet, he might never have had cause to overcome that particular tendency.

And absolutely, the more fluffy the fic in general, the less opportunity for darker stuff will come up.

(But the Junk Cheap scene is a great example - not the least because it offers that excellent comparison between lazy slacker and dangerous badass, which is the Sheppard contradiction in a nutshell. *g*)