[ The Giving of Thanks ]
by kHo

What starts off like this:

“I'm thankful for--”

“Oh god, really?”

John casts an annoyed look at Rodney. “Yes, Rodney, really!”

“It's not even Thanksgiving!”

“Yes it is!”

“For you maybe.”

“Yes, for me, which is why I am celebrating it with the people I care about so shut up and stop being an asshole and let me enjoy your company!”

Rodney rolls his eyes. “And you are expecting us to participate in this thankfulness?”

John nods decisively. “I'm thankful for my team surviving the past five years,” he says, raising his glass. His grin fades slightly and he says, in a more somber tone, “I only regret that Ford isn't here with us.”

Teyla inclines her head. “To teammates gone but not ever forgotten.”

Ronon joins in on the toast but thinks instead of his fallen Satedan brothers.

“I am thankful for--” Teyla begins.

“Oh, you too?”

Teyla gives Rodney a look that shuts him right the hell up. “The health of my child and for Kanaan returning once more to himself, and to me.”

“Yes, that too,” John says, clinking his glass against hers and downing the rest of it, filling it, Rodney's, and Ronon's back up with more of the dark red liquid. Teyla declines a refill because she's the only smart one of the four of them.

“I'm thankful for a place to call home again,” Ronon says, avoiding everyone's gaze.

“Oh fine,” Rodney says, raising his glass. “And I am thankful for Athosian wine that's more potent than any Earth-made alcohol and makes putting up with you people more tolerable.”

John grins and pumps his wine glass in the air. “Amen to that!” he says, and then downs the full glass and pours himself another.

Turns into this:

“And I'm thankful,” John says, tongue sliding against the side of Rodney's neck as Rodney's hand wraps around his dick, “for the way your skin tastes and the sounds you make when you come.”

Rodney's eyes roll back in his head. “God, yeah.”

“And I'm thankful for the way I can't breathe when you go down on me because your mouth is so hot and wide and perfect and your tongue is... is...”

“Is?”

“Amazing,” John says, shuddering against Rodney as Rodney's hand strokes up ever so slowly. “Amazing and perfect and pink and clever and cutting and quick and, and, jesus.”

Rodney grins and strokes faster, loves the way John's breath catches in his throat and how his eyes are half hooded as he almost folds in on himself, like it hurts him to feel this good. “And?”

“And I'm thankful you're so smart and you keep saving my life because it means I get to keep fucking you and hearing you eviscerate your underlings and being with you and laughing with you and oh fuck, Rodney, please--”

“I'm thankful that Athosian wine makes you so talkative, because this is a major turn on,” Rodney says with a laugh. Faster and faster Rodney goes until John's rutting up against his hand like an insane person, driven crazy with lust and wine. “What else?”

“And, and, oh, and how... how...”

“How?”

“How you love me even when I'm being a dick and can't say it back because I'm horrible at saying the things that are really important and that I really want to say and how you get that and don't hold it against me,” John says, and Rodney's hand stops. John opens his eyes and blinks stupidly at him. “Why'd you stop?”

Rodney blinks and feels like he might cry and he hates, hates, hates stupid American Thanksgiving. “That's the closest you've ever come to saying you love me.”

John grins in the firelight and touches Rodney's face and kisses him so, so softly, and Rodney takes a really deep breath and pulls away.

“Okay, it was all hot a second ago and then you went and got all real on me and now I feel like I need to make deep professions of love and huge sweeping romantic gestures and say all the things I haven't said because I didn't think you'd want to hear them and--”

John's eyes widen and he hits Rodney in the chest and says, “And I'm thankful for how your cock fits inside of me and how even after you make me come I'm still horny even though I'm old and shouldn't be able to go twice sometimes three times in one night?”

Rodney laughs and kisses John again, still soft but less soft than before and John shoves his tongue in Rodney's throat and reaches around to grab Rodney's ass and suddenly it's not soft any more at all.

“Did it work?”

“Emotional oversharing crisis averted,” Rodney says, turning John over on his belly. “Now shut up so I can fuck you.”

“And I'm thankful for how fucking bossy you are because God that's hot,” John says, and kind of waves his ass around in the air until Rodney catches it with his hands and guides his dick into it without a preamble because it's not the first time and John is drunk enough to want it rough. “Yeah, do it.”

And Rodney does, hard and rough, and loves the way John bends and arcs beneath him, his hands going back to grab onto Rodney's thighs and pull him in tighter, deeper, the noises he makes and the way his words try but fail to come out, catches bits and pieces of things until John is a quivering mass of melting bones repeating “thank you thank you thank you” over and over and suddenly maybe Rodney doesn't hate American Thanksgiving all that much anymore.

And in the morning, it's this:

“Ow.”

“Ugh.”

“Wow. We really went at it huh?”

Rodney blinks blearily up at the canopy of trees above his head. “We went camping on New, New Athos why again?”

“Holiday,” John says, sitting up and groaning. “Ow, again.” He scowls and makes an awful face. “God, Athosian wine sucks.”

“Yes, it apparently makes me forget that I am over forty and fucking in the woods is a bad idea and I think this limb is actually growing out of my knee,” Rodney says, reaching down and examining the way the thin twig is nearly embedded into his skin. “Also, I am making you pay for my chiropractor bills.”

John stands and groans. “Fine by me as long as you pay for my proctologist visit, jesus, McKay, could you have maybe held back a little? I'm gonna feel this for a week!”

Rodney looks around and frowns. “Okay where did our tent go?”

John frowns and searches the ground as well. “I guess we never put it up?”

“No, you did not,” Teyla says, coming out of the brush behind them with Ronon directly behind her. “Nor did you wait until we were in ours.”

John flushes and looks at Rodney and Rodney looks back and wants to die. “Sorry,” they say in unison.

“It is all right,” Teyla says with a smirk. “We averted our eyes and took our leave.”

“Know what I'm thankful for,” Ronon says gruffly, reaching into his pack and bringing out the small white ipod that he'd stolen from John's pack the evening before. “The fact that your ipod plays loud enough to drown out your sex noises.”

John buries his face in his hands. “Jesus.”

“And I am thankful that Dr. McKay brought the adapter that allows us to attach two headsets to it so I too could listen,” Teyla says, grinning.

“Yes, well,” Rodney says, clearing his throat and busying himself with repacking his bag unnecessarily. “You're uh... quite welcome.”

“I'll be in the puddlejumper,” John says, walking quickly and swiftly out of the clearing.

“Right behind you,” Rodney says, and follows.

“Oh, trust me, McKay,” Ronon says, following behind and flanked by Teyla. “We know.”

Rodney decides then that the only thing he hates more than American Thanksgiving is the sound of Teyla's stupid, obnoxious, not at all endearing or infectious, carefree laughter.