out_there | SGA Wip: The Holiday Season (Cooking wip)

I am having far too much fun writing this. Far, far too much. I mean, it's totally being written for pure self-amusement at this stage. There's no plot, no grand design, no idea how the heck it should be ended, but it's fun to write.

The Holiday Season

John is in hell. The worst part, he thinks, is that nobody warned him. Oh, sure, he remembers vague stories of brimstone and sulfur, eternal burning and the constant wail of pain, but that's a kids' party compared to this: being trapped in Atlantis' kitchens with Rodney McKay.

John should have known that something was up from the careful way Elizabeth smiled when she suggested this. Because, yes, all the teams are grounded over the holiday season and, yes, the upcoming Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Summer Solstice party (and he is never going to get used to the city being in the wrong hemisphere: Christmas should be *cold*) means a lot of extra cooking so all able-bodies should help. But no one mentioned McKay or the rants on convection fans or the rapturous expression as he melts chocolate (actual cooking chocolate, especially delivered by the Daedalus).

John's survived Afghanistan and Antarctica. He's served in wars; he's shot life-sucking aliens; he's nearly blown himself up -- a few times -- with nuclear bombs. He isn't the type to surrender and he doesn't break easily.

But, *God*, the finger-licking is getting to him.

It's all Corporal McKenzie's fault. As head Cook, the kitchen is his domain, and after the third time Rodney had complained about the inaccuracies of measurements, the Alpha Team got dishwashing duty. John might technically be the superior officer, but he knows from experience you don't argue with the cook. If you do, you'll spend the week missing all the good stuff in the mess.

Somehow while he, Ronon and Teyla started scrubbing cake pans and drying dishes, Rodney claimed the all-important job of licking the bowl. Which he does by running his fingers along the inside of the bowl, and then sucking the uncooked cake-mix from his hands with the type of wet moans that should only be heard when naked.

This is why John's in hell: he's trapped in a room with two dozen personnel with wrinkled, pruned hands and a hard-on that just won't quit. At least he's the one washing, so he has a reason to stand close to the counter and keep his back to everyone else.

The worst part about it is that it shouldn't be sexy. Rodney isn't doing isn't trying to tease, isn't pushing one finger slowly into his mouth and making eyes at John. Oh, no. Rodney's focused on the cake mixture, guzzling it down at a speed that should be disturbing, and not disturbingly hot.

A few feet to John's right, Rodney starts on a new bowl, pushing the last one -- that is now very empty -- into the sink.

"Mmmm," Rodney says, "*butterscotch*."

Then he does what John's trying to ignore, what John can't help watching in his peripheral vision: he takes three fingers and slides them along the bowl, scooping up the creamy mixture. Shoving the three fingers into his mouth, past the first and second knuckle, Rodney makes another of those moans as he pulls his hand back. He licks at the bottom of his fingers, sucking the skin in case he's missed something, and then his hand is moving back to the bowl, and the whole damning cycle starts again.

John doesn't want to notice the stretch of Rodney's lips, the way Rodney's eyes close every time he sucks, the flash of red tongue against Rodney's hand. He's trapped here until they finish the dishes and mixing bowls spread across the counter, and he doesn't want to spend the next hour (at his best, and most optimistic, guess) watching Rodney fellate his own fingers to a porn soundscape.

He can *hear* the bow-chicka-bow music that should be playing.

And when Rodney makes a slurping sound, a sound that makes John think of Rodney going down on him, of that wicked mouth around his cock, John cracks. Specifically, he cracks a glass bowl against the edge of the sink and a sliver of glass bites into his palm. He drops it with a hiss and Rodney's amateur porn hour is suddenly the last thing on his mind.

Teyla pins him with a glance. "I think you should see Doctor Beckett about that."

"Nah, I'm good," John says and then belated realizes that it hurts. A lot. John doesn't need to look behind him to know Rodney's there, hovering over his shoulder, irritated and protective.

Teyla notices -- John really doesn't want to think about how much she notices -- and has a hand at his elbow, pulling him away from the sink. "I am sure Rodney can finish washing the bowls."

Rodney pulls a face. He wants to object, but John cuts him off before the diatribe can start. "Thank you, Rodney." Then he follows Teyla to the infirmary and ignores Rodney's demands to know the contents of the dish-washing liquid.

***

In times of celebration, Military Leader apparently means 'he who kills the wild turkeys'. This was so not in the job description.

Again, it's all McKay's fault.

While John was getting his hand sterilized and checked for glass slivers, Rodney managed to stub his toe, splatter custard across the floor, get the Alpha Team permanently banned from the kitchens and trip two cooks (not necessarily in that order). Then Teyla had described tegarek birds to Elizabeth, and Ronon grinned and offered to hunt them, and somehow the entire team's been wrangled into helping.

MX-5846 is dark and shadowed, covered with a lush forest that's reminding John uncomfortably of watching 'Lord of The Flies' as a child. He's pretty sure this isn't going to go well, but that could be caused by Ronon's surprisingly happy smile as he leads the way.

"So," John says to Teyla, because conversation is better than this creepy darkness, "the tegarek birds. What are they like?"

"They have brown feathers, thin necks and a red flap of skin that hangs from their beaks. They fly rarely and have a distinctive call, which is where their name comes from. Tega-tega-tega-tega," Teyla calls, the sounds soft and rounded in her mouth. To John, it sounds like the gobble-gobble-gobble of a turkey. "They are considered a delicacy as the meat is very rich."

"I'd better not be allergic," Rodney says, PDA in hand. He didn't want to be here, but John's making sure the Alpha Team doesn't get banned from anything else. "I bet you I am. I bet we spend all this time, trudging through forests, doing something as utterly primitive as *hunting*, and I--"

There's a noise to the left (leaves rustling loudly) and John freezes, slapping a hand over Rodney's mouth and gesturing at Teyla. The rustles get louder, then a bird steps out of the foliage.

John looks up. And up some more. There's an eight foot tall turkey standing in front of him. "This is a tegarek?"

"It is young," Teyla says softly, stick in hand, "not fully grown."

Turning his head, John stares at her. "You mean they grow bigger than this?"

It's a stupid mistake. He's had years of combat training and he knows not to look away from the threat, but on the other hand, it's a *turkey*. An eight foot tall turkey that uses John's moment of distraction to peck the ground and fasten it's beak around John's calve. It lifts him up and shakes him. John raises his arms, protecting his head from hitting the ground, which is how he loses the P-90. It clatters to the ground, but the bird stands up to its full height, and he's two foot from the ground.

"Guys, a little help here!" he hisses at Teyla, who's doing a great impersonation of a statue. He hopes that Ronon hears too, but from his upside-down vantage point, John can't even see him.

Rodney, at least, reacts and pulls the Beretta out of his thigh holster. As Teyla says, "We do not wish to startle--" Rodney fires and John's world becomes a blur of greenery and the occasional stick hitting his torso. The bird is running really fast and the blood's pooling in John's head and the grip on his leg has tightened to a painful degree, and he's being held upside down by a giant turkey and can't do anything about it.

It's the type of situation that encourages philosophizing. John currently believes that going fast is good, flying is even better and knowing Rodney McKay is hell.

He tells the bird that, and the bird gambols to a stop. It turns its head quickly, swinging John's body one way and then the other and then stops, with its head tilted. As a kid, John had watched chickens do that (the head tilt and freeze thing) and had wondered what they were listening to. Now he wonders if the worms were insulting them.

"Sheppard?" Ronon's voice rumbles through his earpiece.

"I've been taken hostage by Big Bird."

"Good. Keep distracting it."

"Good?" John asks the bird, and gets swung back and forth again. When the world stops swaying, John crosses his arms and continues. "It's not good. I'm the team leader. I'm not supposed to be the *distraction*. I shouldn't have to be bait. I can't believe--"

There's a shnickt sound and then John's dropped. He lands on his back (on sticks and rocks and other sharp, painful things) and he'll have a mottled collection of bruises tomorrow, but it could have been worse. He could have landed on his head.

Then it gets worse: six foot of decapitated turkey lands on him.

***

Enough is enough. John isn't sure if it's Christmas or the Pegasus galaxy that's out to get him, but one can be ignored and the other can be avoided. Under the guise of Christmas, off-world missions were cancelled. And using the excuse of catching up on paperwork gave John a way to avoid any Christmas preparations.

Until Dr Zelenka asks him to help with the Christmas lights in the mess (not actual Christmas lights, but the physics department is programming the room to glow in tiny flashes of color).

"All you have to do," Zelenka says, pushing his glasses up, "is to test them and make sure they work. I have no gene and Rodney is--" A handwave and a word in Czech that can't be complimentary.

"Annoying everyone he's ever met?"

"While claiming he is too busy to be disturbed, yes."

John laughs, and can't help but feel a little bit of sympathy for the guy. (Zelenka, not Rodney.) It's hard enough dealing with Rodney on missions. Trying to deal with him as your *superior* is too cruel for words.

Nodding, John follows Zelenka to the mess. "What do you need me to do?"

Zelenka points to the ceiling, where the edges are lined with flickering lights of green-gold-red-blue. "We cannot get the middle section to work. It is a parallel circuit and the transformers have been adjusted twice, and we've even tried bypassing them."

"Okay," John says slowly. If he cared about Christmas (which he definitely doesn't, not this year), he'd put the effort into following Zelenka's explanation and pointing hands. When he's really bored, the circuitry stuff is almost interesting.

Zelenka must be able to read that in his expression, because he stops explaining and points at the darkened center of the ceiling. "Try to turn it on."

"That's it?" John asks, and Zelenka nods, scruffy hair flying everywhere. John wills the ceiling to light up. Nothing happens. "No luck."

Scratching his head, Zelenka shrugs. "Try going section by section. It's a grid, it should all light up. Perhaps we can narrow the possibilities and find which section is not working."

"Find the one blown light bulb that's stopping the circuit," John says, remember trawling through the mess of wiring with his grandmother, each of them starting at one end and checking each bulb one at a time. At least this is easier.

He turns all of the lights off, and then starts at the left, willing a small square to light up in red. Then lighting the next square in blue and the next in green. He works from left to right (turning each square a different color) and on the thirty-fourth square, it stops working. John skips over it, and moves to the next one, but none of the others will light up either.

Beside him, Zelenka jumps. McKay's yelling into his earpiece loud enough that *John* can hear it. "Radek, what the hell are you doing? The power to the labs just disappeared and there's a huge drain in the central section. Don't tell me you started playing around with the mess lights without separating the conductors."

"Of course I separated them, Rodney. It was the first thing I did, and then I--" Zelenka grimaces and drops his head. "And then I reconnected them to adjust the transformers. It will be fixed within a few minutes."

Zelenka turns a baleful expression on him, like a kicked sheepdog. "Colonel, please, would you help me?"

John has to nod and agree.

Zelenka pries open two panels on the wall about a yard apart from each other. "They are the main control for this room," Zelenka explains, "but I cannot do both at once. I need you to remove the third and fourth crystal and switch them. I will tell you when to put them back in. Remove them now, Colonel."

John pulls them out, and switches them in his hand until he's holding the third one in his right hand and the fourth one in his right. Then he does what he usually does around the science staff: stands back and waits to be told what to do.

Zelenka is pulling out crystals and touching them with the pointed end of a fine pair of tweezers, physically pulling the tiny slivers of silver into new circuits. He does this to five crystals, muttering under his breath. McKay must be berating him, because every so often he'll say, "Yes, yes, Rodney, I am doing that now," and "A few minutes, Rodney, a few minutes."

The sixth crystal is pushed into place and Zelenka says, "Now, Colonel. The third crystal."

John takes the third crystal, in his right hand, and pushes it into the fourth slot. His skin tingles, crawling, and his muscles clench and hurt, and he realizes he's being *electrocuted* (by Christmas lights, for heavens sakes) the same time he realizes he can't open his hand and let go. Zelenka thinks fast and tackles him.

They both land in a pile on the floor: John on his bruise-covered back, with Zelenka's elbows forming new bruises on his ribcage. There's a residual burning sensation up his arm, and his fingers feel char grilled, but there's no actual burns. John lies there, wondering what happened to the crystals (are they salvageable?) while Zelenka stares at him with wide, panicked eyes and radios Carson. "I'm sorry, Colonel, I meant the third slot, not the third crystal--"

"What the hell happened?" Rodney squawks over an open channel. "Zelenka, this is not fixing it! I mean, honestly, that was a very simple mistake to make and it was simple to fix so there is no reason why I'm still sitting here in the dark."

Zelenka sits up, says "Shut up, McKay," and pulls the earpiece off John's head, silencing Rodney's barrage of complaints. Which makes Zelenka John's new favorite person.

Also, the room feels kind of fuzzy and he might be going into shock. "I'm starting to really hate Christmas." John sighs, watching the darkened ceiling. "And I'm not too fond of Rodney either."

***

Carson lets him go after a few hours observation (mild shock, mild concussion from hitting the floor, but no real damage) and says, "John, I'm amazed that you didn't kill yourself. There's a lot of voltage going through those circuits. You've got the Devil's own luck."

If that means John's cursed by evil forces, he completely agrees.

The botany department finds a distant cousin of mistletoe and sprigs of it become decorations, courtesy of Parrish and Lorne. John watches them tie, sticky tape and occasionally blue-tack the cheery red plants along the residential hallways. After half an hour, he helps in the safest way he can think of: passing the plants up to them.

He's completely not surprised when he wakes up the next morning with his hands swollen and red, and hives breaking out along his arms and legs. Carson gives John two shots of anti-histamine (nothing says happy holidays like big needles) and John orders Lorne to take it all down before someone has a serious allergic reaction to it.

It's the first Christmas-related mishap that wasn't caused by McKay, which cheers John for no good reason.

By lunchtime, his hands are back to normal, so John eats in the mess. If he concentrates, he can make the lights flash to the tune of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (Wham's "Last Christmas" is a little harder). Slowly, the rest of the Alpha Team join him. Ronon and Teyla are planning to take the rest of the Athosians tegarek-hunting. John okays it as long as he doesn't have to fly the jumper, go to the planet, or deal with the birds.

Rodney is complaining about the lack of mistletoe in the hallways.

"You liked the mistletoe?" John asks, pushing mashed potatoes around his plate.

"It's a very festive plant. Normally, I'm allergic so I've never been able to do that whole kissing under the mistletoe tradition. But Parrish found that new breed. No allergic reaction whatsoever." Rodney beams like it was a personal accomplishment. Maybe it was for him. "I was looking forward to cashing in on those holiday kisses."

John blinks, and the other shoe drops. "They brought it to you for testing? Shouldn't they have got it approved by Carson, first?"

"Come on. If anyone's going to be allergic to anything, it's going to be me. I'm the most allergy-prone person on Atlantis," Rodney says proudly.

"I should have known you'd be behind it," John mutters under his breath as he stands.

***

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celli

I am so completely amused by this. :)

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SGA Wip: The Holiday Season (Cooking wip)

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