Good For What Ails You, by Giddygeek for the 38 minute challenge

Author: giddygeek
Notes: For the 38 minute challenge (although I did go over by a couple minutes. And went past the deadline. And also it's for someone's birthday. Still. Close enough! *G*) With thanks to kaneko, merryish and astolat.



There weren't enough allergy medications in the galaxy to keep McKay comfortable. Literally, not enough in the galaxy. Carson had brought a huge amount in a wide variety, and McKay had stocked up on his own prescriptions, but even taking a daily medication and bringing along a backup on each mission didn't work all that well. Many of the planets in the Pegasus galaxy looked like Earth and most of the vegetation was kind of normal, but there was a lot of weird-ass pollen anyway, and Rodney McKay was allergic to all of it.

Teyla brought the issue up the night before they were due to hit M2L-903. "It is a favorite of mine," she said of the planet during their pre-mission meeting. "The countryside is full of greenery, and a particular flowering vine called sanalay, of which I'm quite fond. Dr. McKay will not enjoy it half so much."

They all looked at McKay, who was busy at his laptop. He looked back up at them, then spun the laptop around so they could see what he was doing. "Teyla's favorite places," he said, tapping the left side of the monitor. Then he tapped on the right side. "Notes on which of Teyla's favorite places have caused me grief or personal harm. I find the results very, very interesting. There's a pattern, you see. Vague, a bit unclear, but a pattern where all of them are very very bad for me."

John smiled at him. "Well, Rodney, at least this time you know in advance."

"Yes, thank you, Major. Anticipating my misery--well, that will make it all less miserable." McKay spun the laptop back around and resumed typing. "Teammates will mock," he muttered. "Mockery will be very, very poor in quality, though abundant in quantity. Planetary grief factor increased by five."

"Doesn't that increase the planetary grief factor by five, like, every time?" John asked.

"There have been a couple planets where you were rendered unable to speak," McKay said. "Typically, that halves the grief factor. Are we done here? I have pills to take and tissues to pack."

John raised an eyebrow at Teyla, who nodded. All they'd had left to do was discuss her previous experience on the planet. "We're done here," he said, pushing his chair back. "Get some sleep, guys, we've got a long couple days ahead of us. And you," he said to McKay, "take something now."

McKay rolled his eyes and closed his laptop. "Did I not just say that I intended to take something, or is this an alternate universe that I've slipped into, wherein I did not just say that I was going to take something? Not that it will do me any good--just wait for the planet where a sneeze is a deadly insult."

"I hadn't thought of that," John said. "Ford."

"Yes, sir?"

"The way McKay's luck runs, any planet now, we're going to run into the people who think a sneeze means 'your mama dresses you funny.' Make sure we've got enough ordinance for--oh, say a small battle, no bigger than World War I. Got it?"

Ford grinned at him like a little kid, already picturing all the C4 he'd get to bring, and McKay swept from the room muttering loudly, though in his mind he probably thought he was doing it under his breath, and John shook his head. Some days, leading the team was more like babysitting a kindergarten than anything else. A very smart kindergarten where all the pupils knew about sarcasm and P90s and nuclear weaponry.

"Sometimes I wonder how we survive any day at all," he said to Teyla, who nodded at him, somberly.

"I have something that may help Dr. McKay," she said. "An old Athosian recipe. It helped a great many of our people during the growing seasons. Perhaps it might relieve some of his discomfort as well."

John narrowed his eyes at her. "Any citrus, milk, or shellfish in it?"

She smiled slightly. "All ingredients deemed safe and edible, even for Dr. McKay, I promise," she said.

John considered it, nodded. "He'll probably try anything at this point. Yeah. Go ahead, Teyla. We'll see if this helps, and if it doesn't--well, Ford's got us covered, right?"

Ford was still grinning. "Oh yeah," he said. "I know just what to bring."

"You're scary," John said. "I like it. Okay, go."

So Teyla brought McKay the Athosian allergy reliever, and that was when everything kind of went to hell.

~~~~~

"Someone really needs to get him off me," John said, plucking at McKay's hands, of which he seemed to have many. "Right now."

Ford stood over them, grinning. John was starting to wonder if he had some kind of disorder. "Get that look off your face," he ordered, and Ford visibly tried, but couldn't. "That's it, when we get back to Atlantis, you're getting Botox."

Ford turned away, shaking his head and his shoulders, and all John could do was be grateful that he at least wasn't laughing out loud. Then McKay sighed against his neck and murmured something and slid a hand under his shirt to pinch his nipple and John jumped, made a noise that was definitely not a squeak, and said, "Teyla. What did you do?"

Teyla was looking down at them too, but at least she wasn't laughing. She looked vaguely bemused, which meant she was confused as all hell. "I do not know, Major. The recipe is very, very common, and simple, and he has eaten or drunk all the ingredients before."

"In this combination?" John didn't yelp, and smacked the back of McKay's head. "No teeth," he said, and McKay hummed and bit him again.

John shivered and shoved at McKay's shoulder. "Get off me," he groaned, and then there were at least four hands down his pants, all of them belonging to one heavy, warm scientist, and there was no possible way he could fight off four hands, not with his woefully inadequate two. "Not get me off, not get me off," he panted, and Ford lost control and slid down the side of the wall, laughing like he was gonna die of it, and Teyla lost her bemused look and began to smile, just a little, her face going all Mona Lisa.

"If you're not going to get him off me, at least get out," he said, and McKay made agreeable noises and began nibbling his way down John's chest to meet his hand, which was pushing up John's shirt. There was a shuffling, scuffling sound, probably Teyla pulling Ford off the floor and dragging his giggling ass from the room, and then there was only McKay saying his name against his skin, over and over again, and John closed his eyes and thought determinedly of Atlantis.

And, okay, of McKay's talented octupus hands and his, oh god, his tongue--

~~~~~

"Planetary grief factor of plus infinity," McKay said. He had an arm thrown over his eyes, and a hand on his stomach like he was trying to hold it in place. Neither arm hid the hickeys on his chest and hip bone and the hollow of his throat. Nor did they hide the slight redness on his cheeks where he was flushed, and also had been scratched by John's stubble.

John winced and ran a hand over his chin. "It's not that bad," he said weakly.

McKay dropped the arm that was covering his eyes, and glared. "How is this not that bad? Major, we're naked in a hut on a planet that Teyla likes a really lot, my stomach feels like a marching band took up practice somewhere inside it, my ass is sore in ways I don't intend to think about, and I do believe that I have your semen in my hair. How is this not that bad?"

"You're not sneezing," John pointed out.

McKay blinked at him, then took a deep breath. He took another. He sniffed. He touched his eyes. Then he sat up, beaming.

"I'm not sneezing," he said, and it was like he was invulnerable all over again, he was so happy. He leapt to his feet before John had a chance to close his eyes against the view of that, and began to struggle into his clothes. "Teyla!" he was shouting. "Teyla, Teyla, it worked!"

"But if you take it again--"

McKay looked down at him. "Major. I'm not sneezing. I'm sorry, but if there's a choice between your virtue and my unclogged nasal passages, your virtue will just have to go."

"Oh." John thought about that for a moment. He'd kind of liked his virtue, in the sense of being straight in the military, and all. But McKay's mouth was really, really nice for how crooked it was, and also he was kind of hot when he was cranky, and besides that John had always had a thing for sarcastic people. He relaxed back into the wrecked blankets and said, "Okay."

McKay beamed down at him. "Sometimes you're not so stupid," he said generously, and then he was bounding out of the hut to find Teyla and more of her miracle cure, and John lay on the pallet, staring up at the ceiling.

And smiling.

~~~~~