millefiori

Ronon was upset. Rodney couldn’t put his finger on exactly how he knew that, since Ronon upset looked exactly like Ronon brooding or Ronon eating or Ronon thinking really hard, except his expression lacked its usual... intensity. He was kind of wilted around the edges, worn down, and Rodney was at a complete loss.

It was the perfect opportunity to ask for the man’s pudding, for instance - since the fact that he’d already slid his favorite orange mashed root vegetable towards Dr. Ashburn made him seem vulnerable and open to suggestion - and Rodney usually had no qualms about taking advantage of every situation to suit his own needs, except. Except someone had kicked Ronon’s puppy, and the pressure in Rodney’s chest felt oddly sympathetic and disturbingly protective.

He fought off the blatantly wrong urge to pat Ronon’s hand and linked his fingers together in front of his plate. “So, ah,” he started, then trailed off when Ronon lifted sad, sad eyes to catch his. Rodney cleared his throat and tried for a smile. “Everything okay?”

Ronon heaved a sigh. “Yeah.”

“Seriously?” Rodney prodded, leaning forward, almost fascinated by the way Ronon’s shoulders actually sloped downward in tangible dejection.

With another deep, breathy sigh, Ronon shoved his pudding across the table, and Rodney said, “Oh, I didn’t—” and Ronon cut him off with a gruff, “Take it, McKay,” and Rodney may’ve been worried, but he never, ever turned down freely offered dessert.

He spooned up the largest amount he could manage just in case Ronon changed his mind, and asked around the mouthful, “So, is this a Teyla-is-withholding-sex induced melancholy?”

Ashburn choked on his not-quite-potatoes and ducked his head when Rodney sent him a glare, but then half of Ronon’s mouth quirked up, and hey! That was an improvement. Rodney mentally patted himself on the back.

He swallowed down another scoop of pudding. “Did you run out of clothes that fit? Because, you know,” he gestured widely with his spoon, other hand stretching above his head, “you’re freakishly big, and your jacket smells like a dead yak.”

Ronon bared his teeth, but even the menacing curl of his lips looked pathetically half-hearted.

“Wait, wait.” Rodney snapped his fingers. “Sheppard didn’t let you keep Lamar, did he?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ronon growled, and Rodney was so right.

“He didn’t!” Rodney crowed, happy to get to the bottom of the mystery, only Ronon narrowed his eyes and pulled the little lemon-colored – yikes! – lizard out of his pocket, and Rodney slumped down a little in his seat. Okay. So it wasn’t about Lamar. “Not Teyla, not Lamar, not eating,” he murmured, then his eyes widened in sudden horror. “Oh my god, are you sick? Are you contagious? Have you seen Carson? Is there something wrong with your brain? It’s from that Hobart planet yesterday, isn’t it? Sweet Jesus, what if I have it too?” he flailed, getting to his feet and grasping his chest. His breath was short and the air was thick and spots swam before his eyes and, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“McKay.”

“That incompetent sheep farmer of a doctor cleared us.”

“McKay,” a heavy hand clapped his shoulder, “can you try not to freak out in the mess? You’re scaring the marines.”

Rodney glared at Sheppard, spat, “Yes, of course, in the future I’ll make sure to tone down my displeasure at dying a horrible painful death for their delicate sensibilities,” but he was already starting to calm down. Sheppard looked fine and normal and hot and Rodney’s appetite obviously hadn’t been affected, so maybe just Ronon was dying. He jabbed a finger at the yeti. “You need to be quarantined before we all start dropping like flies.”

Ronon looked amused. Which would’ve been a good thing if he hadn’t been breathing out diseased alien microorganisms.

“Oh, hey,” Sheppard grinned widely at Ronon, “you survived a year without killing McKay. Way to go.” He tossed him a brightly wrapped placket. “Miko made you a gun cozy.”

Ronon straightened up in obvious surprise, turning the gift in his hands and running his fingers over the paper, smile actually loose when he glanced back up at them, and Rodney deduced that he probably wasn’t sick at all, but, like the galaxy’s largest and hairiest girl, he’d been sulking.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rodney snapped, then rolled his eyes and sat back down, pulling out a folded piece of smudged paper. “I was going to give this to you later,” without witnesses. “The botanists accosted me with their hippie finger-painting therapy this morning.” He couldn’t seem to say no to Katie Brown. He suspected she knew it, too, and used that to constantly humiliate him. Finger. Painting.

Sheppard leaned forward as Ronon unfolded the card, then sent Rodney a mockingly-arched brow. There was a green and red blob shaped like a cat on the front, with the words ‘Thanks for bathing on a semi-regular basis!’ scrawled in block letters across the top. Inside, Rodney’d attempted team stick figures, but had given up after spending a half-hour on Sheppard’s hair alone, leaving both Ronon and Teyla naked and bald.

“Happy anniversary,” Rodney grumbled, then cupped his hands protectively around the half-eaten bowl of pudding. Ronon wasn’t getting it back.