mayachain

Title: Beating Holidays
Characters: John/Rodney, Jeannie/Kaleb, David, Madison
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~400
Summary: John has a scare.
Notes: This is the Christmas sequel to Beating Hearts, to be concluded within the next 11 days.

There's a, John says, and gulps, face heating up at Kaleb's look of surprise from his working space at the kitchen counter. Hand gripping the door frame, almost white, he can't even say the word, can only stand there in the doorway, frozen, and weakly point a finger in the direction of the thing that has no business being there.

It's not normally a problem. John can cope with being outside and surrounded by little critters just fine. If the team happens to be eating outdoors, Ronon and Teyla are aces at snatching away any and all that come too close. When a couple of mosquitoes took an unusual interest in Ronon, John didn't hesitate joining the others in decimating them. Hell, a swarm of alien bees once saved his and Rodney's lives.

And why is Rodney all the way down in the living room, when he could be here and just take care of it and then guess whether it would be okay or not to tease John?

It's, he manages to force out, with almost no hope of actually conveying anything. He should have just turned back, gone upstairs and taken a leak and then maybe the bug would have been gone, except that would just have meant it would have scurried out of sight, would still be elsewhere.

Kaleb's eyes search his face for a second, then look at the beetle that's currently living the good life on the table in a spot in the winter sun. John would feel mortally humiliated if he weren't so freaked out. It's an Earth bug, Rodney's voice whispers in his ear, It can't do anything to you, except it's a bug, and there's still a bug virus corrupting his blood-work, and they just don't know that.

Eventually, Kaleb reaches for an empty glass and walks over to the table very slowly, takes aim, and upturns it on top of the bug. A bit of cardboard is retrieved and shoved conscientiously under the bug's underside, its tiny legs John tries hard not to think about, before Kaleb swiftly picks the glass and its frightful prisoner up.

Only when Kaleb has thrown the thing out into the snow can John breathe again. There is no way it can survive the cold of Canadian December. Don't tell Dave, he says, because Rodney will understand. I won't, Kaleb vows, as earnest as any of John's own marines, and turns back to cutting vegetables.

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