.We're-Alive-And-Today-Nobody's-Trying-To-Kill-Usmas
PG, holiday floofiness.

Written for the_oscar_cat's Secret SGA Christmas Podfic Anthology, which comes complete with music and squeaky pig and boys in orange fleeces and other favorite things.


We're-Alive-And-Today-No-One's-Trying-To-Kill-Usmas

Back on Earth it's December, but the time conversion gives the New Lantean solar equivalent as mid-July and the weather is settling into sultry. Between that and the past few years, John's given up on Christmas.

First it had been explaining winter holidays to Teyla and Ronon, and how it was possible that not only did people on Earth have many different holidays (most of which had nothing to do with it actually being winter, it had to do with calendars, and why the hell don't you ask anthropology?) but they had multiple ways of celebrating the same one. So there were people who put out shoes for Sinterklaas and candles for Saint Lucia, and Rudolph was actually made up as a marketing device by Macy's and depending who you asked Saint Nicholas was the same as Santa Claus and sometimes not, it depended, okay?

"Okay," Ronon had said, and gone off to do something else.

"The important thing is presents," Rodney had said.

So, really, being on the mainland today with his team has nothing to with winter, or that back home it's Christmas Eve. John hasn't been observant for a long time, and Rodney's strictly in it for the presents, which, even though they require waiting (because Chanukah starts earlier), can all be opened at once. Also, there are more of them.

"Did I ever tell you about Siberia?" Rodney asks from the shade of a Pegasus palm tree. He keeps going, ignoring John saying that yes, Rodney has told him about Sibera, "There was a physicist there, Romanov? Molotov? Something. Anyway, he played Jimmy Buffett in his lab all day long. In Siberia, and he has Jimmy Buffett on singing about beaches and wasting away in Margaritaville." He shivers--in eighty percent humidity and summer sun, he shivers--and mutters something about shoving Jimmy Buffett's lost shaker of salt up Romanov's ass.

"That's the holiday spirit, McKay," John says, and shoves a beer in his hands.

"What holiday?" Rodney asks.

"I dunno." John watches Teyla walking at the edge of the surf, one hand on a belly that looks... not quite Teyla-ish. Ronon's examining John's surfboard. "It's We're-Alive-And-Today-No-One's-Trying-To-Kill-Usmas."

"I can work with that," Rodney allows. He takes a drink and looks at the beer appreciatively. "It would be better with presents."

John rolls his eyes and collapses onto the sand next to Rodney, absently scratching an itch on his shoulder against the rough bark of the tree. This close he can smell Rodney's sweat and see it as a fine sheen on his skin, laced with a bit of fake coconut from his sunscreen. He's wearing possibly the most ridiculous striped shirt in existence, and khakis that John knows are old and over-washed and soft.

"So how come you're not out there trying to break your neck or drown yourself?" Rodney gestures to the waves with his beer, and to Ronon, who's wiped out for the first time. Teyla's laughing, clapping appreciatively, and when she turns back to the shore John can't see her face but he knows she's smiling.

His team. John tries not to think of what that means. It's too real, too fierce for waves that are barely waves and warm sand between his toes.

"Too lazy," he says, when he can talk again, acutely aware that Rodney's looking at him, and that somewhere in the past three years they've learned to read each other.

"Please tell me we're not going to do the angst today," Rodney pleads. "Please. I have beer."

And Rodney says it sincerely enough that John has to laugh and shake his head, which wins one of Rodney's quick, sun-bright smiles, the one John always wants to kiss but never does.

He does today, though, because he isn't trying to break his neck and the sun makes him stupid--and clumsy, too, because his nose bonks off Rodney's and Rodney says something about chipping a tooth, ow, Sheppard, but then it flows, and they fit, Rodney's mouth slanting hot and wet over his, and his hand uncertain centimeters from John's cheek before the sound John makes encourages him to touch.

"It's We're-Alive-And-Today-No-One's-Trying-To-Kill-Usmas," John says, after, when Rodney's still dazed and John's finished licking fake coconut from his lips.

"That was my present?" Rodney asks, somewhere between amazed and indignant.

"Part of it," John says.

"Oh," Rodney says, softly. "Well, okay."