cantina explorers
by greensilver
---
"My son doesn't want to be a farmer." The man swayed slightly on his chair, frowning sadly. "Me, all my life, a farmer. But my son..."
"Will probably be eaten by the Wraith anyway," Rodney said, frowning at his beer - mead - alien beer-mead.
"Rodney." John elbowed him. "Shut up."
Rodney squinted at John. "Does it really matter if he farms? The kid probably just wants to get laid before he dies."
"I'm sure you can relate," John said, smirking.
A dozen really cutting responses to that immediately came to mind - but before Rodney could settle on just one, obnoxiously up-tempo music started playing somewhere behind them. Rodney turned to look, and nearly did a double-take; in a light-flooded corner of the bar, vaguely green-haired humans with improbably large irises were playing on long wood flutes.
Rodney frowned at the flutists in open disapproval. "What is this, the Star Wars cantina?"
John glanced back at the band. "There aren't enough aliens for it to be Star Wars, Rodney."
That made a weird sort of sense, even if all the humans on this planet did seem to have eyes vaguely reminiscent of the Asgard. Two arms, one head, the usual arrangement of noses and ears; these people weren't E.T., they were just ... going through a green phase.
"I guess." Rodney frowned at his empty glass; even the remaining drops of alien beer-mead looked a little green. "Why are we drinking, again?"
"Teyla said it was polite," John said, spinning his own half-full glass between his palms.
"Teyla only said something about hospitality and vines," Rodney pointed out. "This is a bar. I think we have to pay."
John paused, letting his glass spin to a halt. "Do you have any alien money?"
Rodney scowled. "What do you think?"
"I have money," the farmer helpfully informed them, dropping what looked suspiciously like a hoof on the bar. The hoof squished a little as it landed, making a muted clinking noise that attracted the attention of the green-haired barmaid.
She topped off all three glasses with more beer-mead, and smiled at the farmer. "Can I get you boys anything else?"
"I hate that," Rodney said, waving a finger in a wobbling circle. 'Boys'? What was she, his mother? "I'm not a - I have a Ph.D., you know."
She smirked at him. "Do you, now? What does it do?"
Rodney stared at her, momentarily stumped.
John leaned forward, peering around Rodney to smile at the farmer. "Your son won't ... might not, get eaten by the Wraith."
"Oh, come on." Rodney set his glass down with a thunk, and turned to the farmer. "Do you know what cattle are? Cattle? Moo?"
The farmer just glanced at Rodney, then back at John.
"Moo," Rodney repeated, his voice a bit too loud.
John sighed, or maybe snickered; it was getting hard to tell, especially with the inexcusably cheerful flutists playing on in the background.
"He wants to trade on other worlds," the farmer mumbled.
Rodney gave the farmer a friendly pat-pat, suddenly feeling altogether magnanimous. "Good for him. Maybe if he keeps hopping around from world to world, he'll avoid the Wraith altogether. Maybe."
"Be nice," John muttered.
"I'm being perfectly nice," Rodney insisted, tracing random shapes in the perspiration on his glass. "I'm being honest. That's nice."
John eyed Rodney's glass. "You would think so."
The farmer opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, looking fuzzily confused. Taking that as his cue to elaborate, Rodney sat up and made an all-encompassing gesture with both hands.
"The Wraith are," Rodney started, and paused, peering at the farmer. "You know? They eat innocent yokels like you for breakfast. Breakfast."
"'Innocent yokels,'" John mouthed, and smirked.
"And don't even get me started on the Replicators," Rodney said, cutting himself off with another gulp of greenish beer-mead.
John frowned. "Repliwhat?"
"-cators," Rodney emphasized, his words slightly muffled by the glass still lifted to his mouth. "Replicators. Because..."
John lifted a hand to stop him. "Let me guess - because they replicate?"
"Over and over," Rodney confirmed, taking another swallow.
John rolled his eyes. "Did you name those, Rodney?"
Rodney gave his glass a little shake, peering down at the drops on the bottom. Hadn't someone just refilled that? Yes, the buxom barmaid with the green braids. He was sure of it. "No, why?"
"Oh, it just sounds like a name you'd pick out," John said, slouching forward over the bar.
"Hmm," Rodney replied, only half-listening. Of far greater concern was the fact that his beer-mead had inexplicably disappeared, seemingly from the bottom up. Maybe there was a very tiny active wormhole at the bottom of his glass, transporting the beer-mead to another glass somewhere else. He frowned suspiciously at John's glass, but it was empty, too. Maybe there were wormholes in all of the glasses.
Now that he thought about it, that would be a really interesting way for a bar to make money. He'd have to look into that when they got back to Atlantis.
John nudged him. "Rodney, come with me to the bathroom."
Rodney blinked at him in surprise. "What are you, a sixteen-year-old girl? Can't you go to the bathroom alone?"
"It's unknown alien terrain, Rodney," John said, almost managing to say it in his best 'I give the orders, here' voice. "We shouldn't split up."
Rodney paused, thinking it through. Alien bar, alien planet, alien people with green hair and green beer-mead who could potentially have all kinds of green concealed weapons .... "Good point." He glanced at the farmer, then pointed at the empty glasses, hoping the farmer understood.
The farmer only squinted at him, looking incredibly depressed. The man must've had too much beer-mead; it was probably time for the barmaid to cut him off. Rodney would tell her so, just as soon as they got back from the alien bathrooms.
But as it turned out, there weren't any bathrooms in the alien bar - just the great outdoors beyond the back door. John stepped out of the bar just ahead of Rodney, glancing around the deserted landscape.
Rodney poked a low shrub with the toe of his boot. "Why is it humans in this galaxy never have indoor plumbing? Even Romans had indoor plumbing. Aquaducts, you know, I studied those in college and I think that maybe the Ancients-"
"Rodney," John said, and that was all the warning Rodney had before John grabbed him by the front of his uniform jacket and pressed him against the wall next to the back door.
Rodney stared at him, absolutely baffled. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to use my Jedi mind powers," John muttered, staring back.
"You don't have Jedi mind powers, just Ancient ones," Rodney pointed out, pushing a little on John's shoulders.
John leaned in, his mouth almost touching Rodney's. "And you're not an Ancient device."
Rodney stilled, his hands settling awkwardly on either side of John's neck. Maybe there hadn't been wormholes in their glasses, after all, because John's breath smelled like beer-mead and Rodney's head wasn't just spinning, it was wobbling a little on its axis. "No, I'm not."
"So I can't just activate you with my mind," John whispered, his grip on Rodney's jacket tightening slightly.
"Maybe if you try really hard," Rodney said, sliding one hand up John's neck and into his hair. John's hair wasn't stiff with girly-mousse like Rodney had expected; surprised, Rodney spread his hand over the back of John's head, lightly ruffling the hair between his fingers.
"Oh, I'm trying," John said, peering at Rodney from so close-up that Rodney was starting to get a little cross-eyed.
Rodney pulled him closer. "Try harder."
"I am," John said, just barely touching his lips to one corner of Rodney's mouth.
The door swung open, and they scrambled apart. Teyla poked her head out the door, peering into the darkness. "Major? Dr. McKay?"
"Major Sheppard didn't want to explore alien terrain unaided," Rodney blurted, tugging on his jacket.
Teyla glanced in their direction, frowning a bit. "You told our hosts you would only be gone for an hour, and it has been at least two."
John shrugged. "We're exploring."
"We're explorers," Rodney agreed, tugging at his jacket again.
Teyla gave them a level stare, then disappeared back into the bar.
"I think she bought it," Rodney said, and then they were kissing - wet, uncoordinated kisses that tasted like concentrated beer-mead. Rodney lifted one hand to the back of John's head again - it obviously didn't matter if John's hair got a little mussed - and irritably plucked at John's gear-laden vest with the other. Gear was bad, vests were bad, jackets were bad - skin would be better, lots of skin, and if only they weren't on some green-crazed alien planet -
Oh.
Rodney pulled back, thoroughly disoriented. John was standing still, Rodney was sure of it, but John was also swaying slightly, or maybe the entire planet was swaying; Rodney wasn't entirely sure. He reached back to touch the wall, and that light touch seemed to make the world stop moving.
He tried to summon up something sarcastic and situation-appropriate, but the best he could do was, "Well, that was entertaining."
John ran a thumb back and forth over his own lower lip, frowning at Rodney.
"We should go back inside," John finally said, moving back to let Rodney pass.
Rodney drummed his fingers against the wall. "If you could stop fondling your mouth, that'd help a lot."
John smirked, and let his hand drop. "Inside, Rodney."
Rodney pulled the door open, squinting into the too-sharp light that filled the interior. "No more beer-mead."
"Absolutely none," John said, giving Rodney a little push into the bar.
They found the farmer exactly as they'd left him; slumped forward over the bar, almost face-down in his glass. When they settled back in at the bar, he looked up at them, evidently rather confused.
"We were here earlier," Rodney said, by way of explanation.
The farmer nodded slowly, and sat up. "My son doesn't want to be a farmer," he said, as though he hadn't just gotten through telling them his son's life story.
"On second thought, one more beer-mead probably won't hurt anything," John said, eyeing the farmer.
"Me, all my life, a farmer," the man continued, giving them a mournful look.
"Moo," Rodney mumbled, and signaled the barmaid.
--
Author's Note: This story was written on bar napkins, at the prompting of the wicked, enabling lovely #primenotprime folks, especially Julad, who pushed the Star Wars angle. Therefore, they are entirely (at least a little bit?) to blame. Really.
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