Heat Stroke
30 Days of Shipping Day 25: Most popular couple in your favorite fandom
Title: Heat Stroke
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: Gen
Orientation: Gen (Slash if you squint)
Word Count: 672
Prompt: Dark Bingo Fill: “Heat Stroke”
Hurt Comfort Bingo Fill: “Panic Attacks”
10 Tropes Fill: "Vacation Episode"
Having never been prone to panic attacks, John was surprised to have had his first one while on vacation, of all things.
“Well, I’m waiting for the fun to start, Sheppard, you promised me fun if I came along with you on this trip. Thus far, it is more like a mission gone wrong than a vacation.”
John figured Rodney must be feeling better, snark and complaint functions were once again operating within normal parameters. He passed Rodney a Yoo-Hoo he had grabbed from the hospital cafeteria. “We’ll have fun, as soon as the doctor says you can leave.”
“No more sun,” Rodney said with warning.
Sheppard snorted. “Right, like I’d take you back out there after today.” He might never take Rodney outside again.
“I’m not a wuss,” Rodney said, sipping his drink.
“No one said you were, Rodney.” John was the wuss. He was the one that had freaked out and had to ride over in the ambulance with an oxygen mask while the paramedics worked on Rodney.
“It was the humidity that did it.”
Pulling over the single chair in the little ER cubby, John perched on the edge and stared at Rodney, making his own assessment of his friend’s condition. He was a little pink, sunburned despite his SPF 150 lotion. But his eyes were no longer rolling in his head and he was breathing normally. The heart rate monitor blipping away beside the bed showed a normal rhythm. What John had feared was a heart attack had turned out to be a case of heat stroke. But he hadn’t known that at the time, the threat to McKay’s health had seemed real.
And John had lost it. He had thrown up in the parking lot when the ambulance arrived and the professionals took over Rodney’s care.
“How about we skip the hiking and hang out at the indoor water park tomorrow?” John suggested.
Rodney looked at him hopefully. “Tube slides?”
“Of course.”
“There will be a ton of kids there,” Rodney declared with a frown and resumed sucking on his straw.
“Not too many, it won’t be that crowded, it’s still off-season and mid-week. And if there are kids, I’ll fend them off for you, Rodney.”
“You would?”
“Of course I would. I want you to enjoy the vacation, Rodney.”
“Can we try that steakhouse we saw?” McKay asked hopefully.
“Yup. I wasn’t sure you’d be hungry.” John wasn’t really hungry, but if Rodney was, he’d take him wherever he wanted to go.
Setting aside his empty bottle, Rodney nodded. “I‘m getting hungry now, the nausea and headache are subsiding. So what else do you have planned, beside the water park?”
“Philharmonic?”
Rodney eyed him skeptically. “You’d sit through the symphony?”
“Sure.”
Now McKay was staring at him. “I scared you, didn’t I? When I passed out.”
John nodded. “Yeah. You were convulsing and your pulse was racing, I thought you were having a heart attack on me.” McKay had been out of it, he’d missed John’s little freak out.
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault. I should have checked the weather and not kept us out in the sun so long.”
“You were having so much fun surfing, I didn’t want to go back to the hotel.”
Frowning at Rodney, John shook his head. “Not that much fun, I wish you would have tried it.”
“Then we’d be in here getting broken bits of my body plastered up, or maybe having the water drained out of my lungs. Here comes the nurse, ask her if I can leave.”
Relieved that Rodney seemed back to normal, John flagged down the nurse, who said she’d have to get a doctor to release him.
Rodney spent the rest of the time in the ER regaling John with tales of other trips to the hospital he’d taken in his life. By the time they left, John was ready to bundle Rodney in bubble wrap to keep him safe, but that might get him overheated again, so John abandoned the idea.
The End Originally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/