Title: midnight at McMurdo
Author: 30toseoul
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: R
Notes: This is an Antarctica ficlet written on a prompt from cathexys.

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Everyone was issued a shiny copy of the United States Antarctic Program handbook before coming to the Ice. If they ever took practical suggestions for the advice pages, John would have a few to give them. Nothing about bringing a phone card or minimizing wasteful packaging on your personal items, either. He'd give them useful additions. Things that would really prepare you for life at McMurdo.

His top one would be: Never do shots of Jägermeister with the air traffic controllers unless you want to lose your goddamn mind.

Because he hadn't planned to get groped in the middle of the Southern Exposure bar by Rodney McKay. He certainly hadn't planned to sit there and let it keep happening, or to spread his legs a little to provide better access.

They'd never publish my suggestion anyway, John told himself. People don't want to know how much the controllers drink.

It was easy to have a conversation with himself, because although Rodney's thumb was doing something spectacular to the head of his cock through his jeans, Rodney wasn't even looking at him. He was conducting a shouted argument with one of the controllers about Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation. John would have found this event almost impossibly surreal if they didn't play the show every afternoon on one of the station TV channels. It seemed to be a good-natured argument, anyway. Everyone in the bar was shouting, and jammed together, and red-faced and sweating, because it was midnight at Southern and half the station were bombed out of their minds.

None of them were in any shape to notice Rodney's hand between John's legs under the table, in other words.

John was in the middle of composing another advice submission--Never wear tight jeans around horny scientists--when Rodney suddenly leaned over and said into his ear, "Hey, you know anywhere we could go?"

He had a few seconds of total paranoia, and then he realized that nobody could possibly hear them over the bluegrass cover of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" that was currently blasting on the stereo. "Yeah, I--yeah," he said, leaning close to Rodney's ear. "You know where the bowling alley is?" and at Rodney's nod, "Upstairs."

Rodney struggled immediately out of his chair, yelling something about meeting people at the Coffeehouse. Their whole table was so busy distributing a fresh round of Canterbury Draught that they hardly paid any attention, and John found himself following along obediently when Rodney gave him an impatient look.

With the shock of bright sunlight and cold when they emerged, John didn't realize for a minute that Rodney was steering him with one hand wound in the fabric of his flight jacket. He pulled his arm free, hissing, "Jesus, be more obvious!" and Rodney rolled his eyes and said, "Please, Major, that guy back there was being carried, they'll think you're drunk," and he said, "Still, christ," and Rodney said, "There's hardly anyone around!" and they bickered all the way across the rock-strewn parking lot, past the Coffeehouse, through the door of the old quonset hut and up the narrow staircase, and when John pushed him inside the bouldering cave and kicked the door shut, he was pretty sure he kissed Rodney just to shut him up.

Rodney refused to lie down on the mattresses, on the grounds that they were filthy beyond belief, but the ceiling handholds worked well for other activities.

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Tags: author: 30toseoul, rating: r