Turnabout
by darkhavens
Pairing/Characters: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Words: 300
Summary: Somebody gets stung. It's not Rodney
John barely noticed the jewel-coloured insect on his arm, just brushed it off and continued trekking through the woods. He'd grown used to ignoring Rodney's dissertations on how they were going to die, and the running commentary on just how nature could whup their collective ass was one he'd heard a thousand times before, or so it seemed. It took several paces for anything out of the ordinary to register.
Between one footstep and the next, he grew dizzy. Anxiety had him moistening dry lips with a tongue rendered strangely swollen. Breath was suddenly hard to catch, as though he'd taken a well-aimed body blow from one of Teyla's sticks. The trees around him twirled and dipped, sending jagged rays of crystalline bright light into his eyes. He chose to believe that that was why he stumbled.
Rodney was there before he ignominiously hit the ground, muttering dire predictions and laying the blame squarely at John's traitorous feet.
"You'd think, with your prior experience, you'd know not to mess with indigenous lifeforms. How many times have we listened to Carson's lectures on the subject? At least this time you're the one in trouble instead of me."
But even as Rodney gloated and nagged and lectured about John's idiocy, he was smoothly checking for signs of anaphylaxis, and he found them.
With a muted mutter that John was wasting medication meant for him, Rodney produced and used an EpiPen on one strong thigh. And if Rodney's helping hand lingered longer than it should have, and maybe a little too close to his groin, John didn't see any reason to complain. He was much too relieved, at feeling his apprehension fade, at being able to take a full, deep breath instead of shallow pants, to remind the resident genius to be discreet.
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