mayachain

Title: Beating Holidays
Characters: John/Rodney, Jeannie/Kaleb, David, Madison
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~400
Summary: There's lots of snow in Toronto this year.
Notes: This is the Christmas sequel to Beating Hearts, to be concluded within the next 7 days.

We should have a snow fight, Madison declares, looking imperious enough that none of the adults has the heart to dissuade her. Kaleb fidgets like he wants to beg off, but Jeannie and Rodney eye one another outright speculatively, and the expression on Dave's face is about as gleeful as John has ever seen it.

The expression on Rodney's face when Madison picks him first for her team is a sight to behold. Naturally, you have the brains to asks the smartest man around for this operation, he blusters, and not even Jeannie opens her mouth to contradict that assertion, too awed by Rodney's all-too-obvious gratefulness and joy.

Goo! Dave shouts while the rest of them are still psyching each other out, Impatient,, John thinks, but his fingers are getting cold and it's been almost forty years since he last did this with his brother, and he wants. Premature, Davie, he mutters nonetheless, just as Madison echoes, Go!

And they're off, hurling chunks of cold and wetness and perfect angles and insults, the likes of which John has only ever heard while training his marines, or visiting the science labs. You're holding back, John, Rodney accuses once both sides have run out of their first batch of ammunition and there's a short détente, and it's true. So're you, John counters, causing Jeannie to look at her brother in shock, feeling somewhat guilty for reminding them all of the fact that while John has been in the Air Force since he was twenty-two, there are two on this battlefield with combat experience.

I'm the master of the shield, Sheppard, Rodney calls, and John is sure both Jeannie and Dave can feel it as something inside him relaxes. When the fight resumes, his balls are vicious, deadly and precise and terrifying enough to have Dave gulp, possibly thinking of real bullets.

None of the deadly missiles hit home. Every single one is intercepted by one of Rodney's, and the only snowballs hitting anyone are Madison's, Kaleb's, David's and Jeannie's.

What the hell happened, Dave wonders, next to him, not at all conscious of voicing the thought out loud, but John doesn't have the words to explain how this became something he needs, opting instead to restock their ammo as Jeannie does her very best to soak both her daughter and her husband to their bones.

onwards