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It starts when Markham and his team come back from PX-874, with a large wooden cart, filled to the brim with ridged, round, yellow objects.
“Are those… pumpkins?” Elizabeth asks, her eyebrows raised.
“Yes, ma’am,” Markham confirms. “The villagers were so grateful to Simpson for fixing their drainage system, they gifted us some of their crop. You said we needed food, so…” Markham shrugs.
Elizabeth smiles, small and wry, and moves to the side.
“I did, didn’t I? Well done. Take one to botany for analysis, and then get the rest to the kitchen. I hope folks like squash.”
---
“I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’m sick of pumpkin pie.” Rodney groans, even as he scrapes the remnants of filling from his plate, licks a tiny bit of cream from the back of his hand.
“I’m with you, doc. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin ravioli, pumpkin bread. It’s getting a bit old.” Pushing his own plate away, pie left half eaten, Ford frowns as Rodney pulls the dish towards himself, tucks into the remnants of the slice.
“I admit I grow weary of so much melis, but it would be wasteful to not make use of them.” Teyla pointedly takes another small bite of her pie.
“How much more do we have?”
“At least two more crates,” John answers.
Ford groans. “There’s got to be something we can do with them.”
“Huh.” John’s eyes narrow.
“What’s that look? Sheppard? I don’t like that look!”
John ignores Rodney’s wagging finger and rises from the table. Bussing his tray, John strides from the mess, heading straight towards Elizabeth’s office.
---
“Really, John?” Elizabeth asks, not bothering to hide her amusement. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in this kind of thing.”
“Well, I’m full of surprises.” John contemplates adding a wink there in the end, but he thinks that might be too far, even for this weird brother-sister-flirting thing they have going on.
“Are you sure you’re not just sick of pumpkin soup?”
“That too.”
Elizabeth laughs, hand scrubbing across her eyes.
She looks tired, John thinks, frayed around the edges. They all do, these days. The whole base is existing crisis to crisis, caught in a constant cycle of searching for their next food source, preparing for their next emergency, shoring up defenses for the next attack.
Maybe it isn’t such a hare-brained idea, after all, John thinks. They could all use a bit of a break.
“Alright, you have the go-ahead. With the new trade deal AR-5 just brokered, we should have plenty more fresh vegetables coming in. Major, go organize your pumpkin-carving contest.”
---
Rodney scoffs, Teyla is confused, but Ford takes to the task like a duck to water.
“What about a costume contest, too? Most folks have gotten really good with a needle and thread - we could give people the opportunity to do something fun, instead of just repairing shirts and socks.”
“Sure,” John shrugs, intent on his screen. Carefully, he drags the seven of hearts onto the eight of spades. “Go talk to Captain Dawson. He was collecting scrap fabric, before we got that woven stuff in from the planet with all the looms. See what he can spare.”
“And we could get some cider from the Athosians. Oh! And I had an idea for a haunted house - if we just take one of the labs we cleared in the west tower…”
“Ford?” John looks up from the screen.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m delegating Halloween to you. Go nuts.”
“Really, sir?” Ford’s eyes light up, and John takes a moment to pat himself on the back. He’d never planned to take command, never thought he’d be responsible for the safety and wellbeing of dozens of men and women. And it’s more than tactics, more than security protocols, more than artilleries and ammo and flying. It’s paperwork and supply rationing and mental health and morale - all the things John had sworn he’d never do.
But maybe, he thinks, looking at Ford, who’s already sketching out designs for what appears to be some sort of animatronic werewolf, he’s not so bad at this morale thing after all.
---
“Did you know Ford is building a funhouse?”
“What?” John looks up from his tablet, puts aside the reports from AR-7 and stares across the lab table at Rodney. “A funhouse? Like at a fair?”
“Some marines found the ancient equivalent of a beauty salon a couple weeks back, and he liberated a bunch of mirrors from there. Zelenka’s helping him distort them so they do the weird shapes thing - you know, making people taller, fatter, even weirder looking.”
John laughs. “Cool.”
“It’s a waste of resources. One of the only semi-competent scientists I have out here, and how is he spending his time? Is he working on our shields? Doing the drone analysis I asked for? No, he’s making a funhouse mirror.”
Rodney’s tone is disdainful, annoyed, but that just makes John smile wider.
He’s not sure how it started, these late night lab sessions, John perched on a lab stool, catching up on paperwork, as Rodney does, well, whatever Rodney does. It’s just easier to work in the lab, he tells himself, he’s always needed the hum of background noise and activity to get things done, and the near constant soundtrack of Rodney’s complaints and muttered ramblings is perfect. Sometimes, they even bunk off early, play that Ancient version of Civ that Rodney found on one of their computers.
He doesn’t think about the fact that the smell of burnt coffee elicits a near pavlovian sense of relaxation and comfort in him.
“I take it you’re not a big Halloween guy?”
“No, Major, I’m not five.” Rodney pauses for a moment. “Not that I was interested in the holiday even when I was five.”
“Too busy playing with Baby’s First Particle Accelerator?”
“Something like that.”
John gets up, takes a long stretch, cracks his shoulders, delighting in the way Rodney cringes. He pours himself a mug of lukewarm coffee, tops up Rodney’s own mug.
“I used to love Halloween. Dressed up every year. Our house… well, there weren’t a lot of other houses nearby. So my mom drove my brother and I to the other side of town, to go trick or treating. The houses were always covered in decorations - people really went all out, you know. And I loved it. Dave - that’s my brother - we’d get to run wild, and gorge on candy. It was one of my favorite nights of the year.”
Rodney’s looking at him now, eyebrows furrowed, the way he sometimes regards a difficult equation or a puzzling scan. John normally hates scrutiny, never wants to be the center of attention, but he finds he doesn’t mind when Rodney looks.
“I think my parents took me trick or treating once? When I was maybe six or seven. I was a cowboy.”
John grins at the image.
“Don’t laugh- wasn’t my idea. Other kids went with their friends, I guess, or siblings, but I didn’t have-. Well, my parents had to take me. And they argued the whole time - about the route, about how much candy I could have. I remember they just stopped talking to each other, midway through the night, no matter how much I tried to get them to start again.” Rodney’s mouth tugs down, his eyes bright and blinking. “Anyways, I didn’t go again. Not until I was older. I took my sister a few times, but no one really gave out candy to sullen teenagers, so it wasn’t exactly a great time for me.”
Rodney shakes his head, blinks rapidly, and returns his attention to his laptop, fingers hovering over keys, but not typing. John clears his throat.
“Well we won’t exactly have candy, but I’ll make sure to save you some apple pie.”
Rodney’s lips quirk up, just slightly, and his fingers begin to move.
---
Teyla spends an afternoon with Dr. Desour, the anthropologist, and an evening watching horror movies with the rest of the team, before she finally begins to grasp the holiday.
“It is a children’s holiday, is it not?” she asks, eyebrow raised pointedly at Ford, who’s busy stitching together some sort of red fabric.
“Well, yes, but-” John begins.
“So then it would be appropriate to bring the Athosian children. I’m sure they would also appreciate an opportunity to learn more about Earth customs, and enjoy themselves. The move from Athos has been hard for them.”
John knows when he’s beat. “Sure. Ford?”
“Hm?” Ford looks up, thread hanging from his lip, needle held tight in his hand. “I mean, yes, sir?”
“Could you see about getting some costumes for the Athosian kids?”
“Or perhaps,” Teyla interjects, “you could help them make their own costumes. Our children learn to mend from a very young age. I believe many of them may be more handy with a needle than the rest of the expedition.”
Which is how John somehow finds himself supervising a gaggle of Athosian children, as they sew, paint and craft costumes, most more terrifying than any he would find in a store back home.
“Do you like the blood?” Jinto asks, as he drips more paint down the leathery mask Halling has helped him create.
“Looks great, buddy,” John says with about as much sincerity as he can muster.
On the other side of the hall, he finds the scientists doing something complicated looking with motors and metal rods. And to his surprise, Rodney is right there with them, barking out directions and picking out problems, as if they were constructing a nuclear reactor, not some sort of horrible robotic monster.
John leans in close, smiles smug and satisfied when Rodney jumps. “I thought you weren’t a Halloween guy.”
“Yes, well someone had to stop them from butchering any of the important tech. And can you believe they wanted to use a wired controller?” There’s a screeching noise and the smell of burning rubber, and Rodney’s eyes snap to the side. “Kusanagi! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
---
John has to admit, the kids really do make the party. He dodges as a little girl in a wraith mask chases after a boy wrapped in bright fabrics, smiles as Wex pulls his head from the metal bucket, mouth closed tight around an apple, wig dripping water on the floor.
John shifts his mask back, takes another long pull of his mulled cider and heads over to the corner, where Elizabeth is taking in the festivities. She looks lovely in a long black dress, dark makeup, and a small red line of blood running from her mouth.
“So… good idea, right?”
“Yes, Major, it was a good idea. Well done. Although I believe most of the credit should go to Ford?”
“A good leader knows how to delegate.”
Elizabeth raises her own glass to his, and clinks. “I’ll drink to that. Where is our Halloween master anyways?”
“Running the haunted lab.” It had been a triumph, really, a wending maze of mirrors and fog, strobe lights that Grodin had rigged up, small animatronic beasts popping out from the mist. The home sewn nature of their costumes, all ragged fabrics and haunting, crooked faces, had almost made it more horrifying. And the piece de resistance - the giant, robot spider, that Rodney and the rest of the engineering team had constructed, which folks had started lovingly calling Shelob.
The mess is decidedly more kid-friendly, decorated with the yellow pumpkins, some carved, and some still whole, as well as paper ghosts and bats. Stackhouse had combed through the entire expedition’s pooled musical resources, and John is bemused and oddly touched to see that someone had chosen to use a portion of their precious data allotments to bring The Monster Mash to another galaxy.
As the night wears on, and the cider gets spiked, the party turns more raucous. A zombie Carson leads a group of nurses in an extremely sloppy attempt at the Time Warp and the cider loosens John’s limbs enough to share a quick dance with Teyla, who’s dressed as some sort of princess, or maybe a witch.
But still, there’s no sign of Rodney - in fact, John thinks he hasn’t seen him since the start of the evening, when Zelenka had won the costume contest, dressed as a particularly hairy werewolf. John still hasn’t asked where the extra hair had come from.
As Thriller shuffles on to the playlist, John ducks out to the balcony to grab some air, and take a look at the pumpkins, lit in their full glory.
The pumpkin carving contest had been cutthroat in the end, and John had been surprised to find how many talented artists they had on Atlantis. Frankenstein’s monsters, ghouls, and delicate haunted houses are sprinkled in with more classic, toothy, grinning jack o’lanterns, and John marvels for a moment at the warm, yellow light, this glowing collection of spooky faces and forms, decorating the balcony of a 10,000 year old city. He wonders, if maybe, their light might be enough to scare away all the demons and monsters of Pegasus, at least for this one night.
It takes him a moment to spot Rodney in the corner, leaning out over the balcony, cast in the shadow of the lanterns. He’s wearing a woolen scarf, a hat, and John can see the faint outline of what he thinks is a screwdriver in his pocket.
“So,” John leans next to Rodney, closer than he normally allows himself, smiling at Rodney’s startled twitch, “where’d you park the TARDIS?”
“Ha. Ha. I already had the scarf and screwdriver, and I borrowed the hat from Carson - who knows why he has it.” John lets out a loud guffaw, and Rodney laughs in return. He doesn’t hear Rodney laugh nearly enough, he thinks.
“What are you supposed to be?” Rodney asks, and John tugs down his mask for a brief second, before shoving it back up again. “Ah, very original.”
“I drilled some holes in an old wooden dish Teyla had. Didn’t have time to do much else, between all the party prep, and you know, my actual job. It itches like crazy though.”
“You did well,” Rodney says after a moment. “I mean, people are having fun. It was a good idea.”
He’s close, so much closer to John than he ever really is, and his face is cast in the light and shadows of a hundred glowing jack o’lanterns, and John finds himself mesmerized, dazed by the light and the drink and Rodney. It’s always Rodney, he thinks, in this galaxy so far from everything he’s ever known.
“What about you? Are you having fun?” John asks, breathier than usual. He isn’t imagining it, he thinks, the way Rodney sways closer to him, the way his eyes drop down to John’s lips. John is aware, vaguely, that this is a moment, one of those instances of tension and that he has a decision to make, only it’s no decision at all, at least not anymore.
He angles his head, lets a hand drift up to Rodney’s shoulder, and leans in. Rodney’s leaning right back, only then he hears the unmistakable sound of the balcony door sliding open, the noise from the party spilling outside.
Rodney stiffens, and instinctively, John pulls away.
“Major? Doc? You out here? Zelenka’s just pulled out a limbo stick - want to see how low you can go?” Ford calls.
Before John can answer, Rodney’s brushing past him, back into the party, muttering something about the lab and simulations. He’s gone before John can even tug his mask back down.
---
It takes John nearly an hour to find Rodney, who has, of all places, hidden out in his own room.
“Trick or treat,” he drawls, as Rodney opens the door.
“If I say treat?” Rodney asks, his eyes skittering to the doorframe, the corner, anywhere but John.
“I brought you some pie.” John holds out the plate, inordinately pleased when Rodney’s eyes light up. “You left before they cut it.”
“And if I say trick?” Rodney asks, voice even more hesitant than before.
“Can I come in?”
“Is that a trick?”
“Rodney.”
“Fine, fine,” he mutters, moving aside to let John through. It’s the first time he’s actually been in Rodney’s quarters, and it strikes him as exactly what he would have expected. It’s cluttered, but there’s a clear system, piles of wires and tools adorning most available surfaces, two laptops stacked on the desk. There’s his degrees on the wall, framed, and more interestingly, a small photo of a cat at his bedside.
Rodney clears his throat and it’s John’s turn to startle, and he gives a sheepish grin at being caught staring.
Rodney opens his mouth to speak, and John can see him winding himself up and in a startling moment, John knows exactly how this will go. Rodney will give him an out - blame the alcohol or the light of the jack o’lanterns, or even the holiday spirit. And he wouldn’t be wrong, John thinks, but he wouldn’t be completely right either. Because John is trapped in a strange galaxy, he carries the weight and the guilt of hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths, and he is responsible for the lives of every member of this damned expedition. And Rodney? Rodney has given him the solar system, the sky, the universe, and more.
“Look, about-” John grabs the stupid knit scarf, tugs Rodney in close and kisses him. Runs his hands down the wrinkled fabric of his jacket, feels the solid expanse of Rodney’s body in his arms. He lets himself grip tight - tighter than might be comfortable - but Rodney gives it all back in return, pulls him closer with a force that just short months ago, John wouldn’t have expected.
Rodney kisses him, ravages him, really, biting and bruising, teeth tugging on his lower lip, tongue thrusting deep and forceful into his mouth. His hands are everywhere, sliding across the width of John's back, gripping in his hair, cupping his ass to grind against him. John's stupid mask clatters to the ground, and embarrassingly John tries to grope along Rodney's hard dick, only to discover it really is a screwdriver in his pocket.
Only then Rodney has him on the bed, pinned down, hips rolling against his own, and there's no doubt that Rodney's enjoying the friction too. John pulls back with a deep, panting breath, tugs frantically on clothes, stifles a laugh when Rodney trips on his own underwear, and stifles a groan when Rodney's hand finally wraps around him, firm and spit-slicked.
It doesn't take much to get John trembling, hips pistoning as he fucks up into Rodney's tightening fist. Rodney's tonguing his collarbone, scraping teeth down his neck, and John's nerves are frayed. He's wanted this - he can't believe how long he's wanted this, and Rodney is here and real and is a solid, heavy weight pressing down on his hips.
Pleasure crashes over him, spasms through his belly and thighs, and with a groan he comes, shooting warm and white across his own skin.
He wants to rest, pull Rodney down into the sheets, wrap them up in his blankets, shut away from the world until the moons sink low in the sky, but Rodney is still hard - cock red and leaking against his own stomach.
With a wicked grin, John leans down and whispers, "trick", before taking Rodney down deep, swallowing against his gag reflex. He bobs his head up and down, presses his tongue against the smooth, velvety head of Rodney's cock, sucks hard, and that's all it takes. Rodney moans, and gives a small warning tug on John's hair, before shooting down John's throat, salt-bitter and thick.
John flops back up beside him, rests a hand lightly on his shoulder, suddenly uncertain of where they stand. John's done this enough times to know that just because you swallow some come, doesn't mean you get to spend the night.
Only Rodney is snuffling into his chest, pressing a sleepy kiss to his heart, and pulling the covers up. He drapes a leg across John's hip, pinning him down and whispers a sleepy "Happy Halloween", his eyes drifting shut.
John's already warm, knows he'll be sweaty and sticky soon, knows that even in another galaxy, he can't be seen leaving another man's room in the morning, but he'll worry about it later. For now, he presses his nose into Rodney's soft hair, inhales the smell of candle smoke and apple cider, and lets himself drift to sleep.