Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4184940.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_(Movies), Marvel_Cinematic_Universe, Marvel,
      Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Kraglin_Obfonteri/Yondu_Udonta, Peter_Quill_&_Yondu_Udonta, OMC/Yondu
      Udonta, OMC/Peter_Quill
  Character:
      Yondu_Udonta, Peter_Quill, Kraglin_Obfonteri, Ravagers_(Marvel), OMC, OFC
  Additional Tags:
      This_fic_will_contain_non-con, And_hinted_interest_in_underage, I_will
      add_tags_as_they_become_appropriate, And_mark_every_chapter_accordingly,
      Graphic_scenes_will_be_entirely_optional_to_read, Skip_at_will, i
      apologise_in_advance, This_Is_Why_We_Can't_Have_Nice_Things, This_is_what
      hapens_when_I_write_while_stressed_and_frustrated_from_exams, Bad_Things
      Happen_To_Characters_I_Love, Drawn_from_a_kink_meme_prompt, Bottom_Yondu
  Series:
      Part 2 of Ravagers
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-06-22 Completed: 2015-07-04 Chapters: 9/9 Words: 27212
****** The One With The Hostile Takeover ******
by Write_like_an_American
Summary
     A rival gang of mercenaries lays a trap, and the Ravagers fly right
     into it. Things go from bad to worse when Peter catches the attention
     of the enemy captain - and then worse still. Blood, guts, and
     brutality galore.
Notes
     Hi everybody! This is the promised midquel from my other major GotG
     fic, The Ravager's Guide To Getting Laid (lovingly shortened to
     TRGTGL). Which you totally need to read first. Absoposidefinitely. No
     excuses. And leave me kudos. And reviews.
     ... Just kidding. You don't technically need to read TRGTGL first at
     all. You may miss out on a couple of references, but it won't be
     anything vital.
     If you're looking to factor this into TRGTGL - I don't know about
     you, but I love my fanfics to have some level of continuity, when
     they're set in the same universe - it can be fitted into some
     indeterminable timespace between sections two and three. So that's
     'Primitive R&R' and 'Terrans and Tabletops', for anyone confused by
     TRGTGL's admittedly wacky chapter system.
     As this fic is definitely going to contain some stuff that isn't
     everyone's cup of tea, it's up to you whether you decide to slot this
     into TRGTGL canon, imagine it as a TRGTGL AU, or ignore its existence
     entirely.
     Happy reading. And I apologise in advance.
     Additional note: I imagine Peter's somewhere in the region of eight
     or nine in this fic (and, coincidentally, at the start of TRGTGL).
     I've also just realised that that's a fair sight younger than he is
     at the start of the movie. But heeeey, fuck canon. Let's just roll
     with it.
***** Shit Happened *****
Peter doesn’t remember until years later.
No, that’s a lie. He remembers, alright. He remembers every detail. Even if the
images are half-formed and nebulous, shaky from adrenaline and sucked of all
colour but red and blue, and the voices jilt and shift between the roars of the
furious and the screams of the dying like someone’s unsuccessfully trying to
tune a radio.
But although all five of those godawful hours have been branded to the inside
of his skull (alongside various other traumas he’s undergone since he was
hoiked off Terra by a bunch of hungry intergalactic space pirates), it’s always
been superficial. Impressionistic. He’s never studied the scenes. Never wanted
to, to be honest; after all, what more could you need to know than the basics?
The basics are as follows.
Stardate 5279Alpha4.
Location: the Outworlds.
The Eclector chased a gang of Horde renegades to a forgotten cobwebbed corner
of the galaxy, expecting no more resistance than whatever arsenal could be
hauled by a handful of runaway rival pirates with only one ship to their name.
Easy money. And a lot of it.
Perhaps that should’ve tipped them off. A bait that honeyed’s gotta come with a
trap. And indeed, it had done.
They’d set up the Eclector to orbit around a crater-pitted moon. An uninhabited
system on the outskirts of Xaggarad quadrant. Typical outworlds scene; nebula
hanging in the distance like gossamer curtains, wreckage of a failed satellite
colony, the slow burn of a dying sun. A circlet of planets too unstable and
volcanic to support more than temporary outposts.
Half the crew had been sent planetside to start the hunt. They’d only been gone
an hour before their M-ships were turned into fireworks. Guerrilla tactics,
they’d assumed. Smart, but futile – Eclector was twenty times the size of the
chugging hangership the renegades had stolen. They could deal with the vermin
problem and call home for transport, no problem. Sure, the accountant would
grind his molars to ash and go bitching to captain about how they all deserved
a pay-cut. But the prize for this gig outweighed the cost of a few little M-
ships. All the renegades had done was piss them off.
Only, by the time they’d finished picking the gore out of their boots, the
Eclector wasn’t picking up.
It turned out that the second most prosperous gang of rascally space mercs this
side of Betelgeuse had set bounties on their own, sacrificing a few rookies for
the sake of luring the Ravager flagship away from her fleet.
Bait, set.
Prey, feasting.
Trap, sprung.
The Horde armada had spilled out from where they’d hidden in the star’s fluxing
rad footprint, swarming around the Eclector and locking enough guns on her to
pulverize her in an instant. Then the captain, a Xandarian fella of the pallid
brooding type who sported a full set of self-inflicted prosthetic limbs, had
buzzed up on their screen and requested, with all due politeness, that he come
aboard.
It was a merger, of sorts. Outlaw style. Rather than getting laid off with a
pleasant retirement package, those who didn’t make the cut were due for
evisceration, mutilation, defenestration – whatever took their captors’ fancy.
And caught their captors’ fancy Peter had.
That had been later though. To start with, everything had been going according
to plan.
Because of course, the Ravagers weren’t going down without a fight. Outmanned,
outgunned – they knew they didn’t have a prayer if they went toe-to-toe with
the amassed Horde ships. But there was the saying – cut the snake off at the
head… And here was the enemy top dog himself, strolling into their midst to
formalize his new seat as boss of a combined crew. If he wasn’t expecting a
little resistance, he wasn’t right in the noggin.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to make a pretence at cooperation. And so, Yondu had
locked the Terran brat in an unremarkable little storage closet – part of a
number he’d claimed a few years back to house a couple of antique EMP-grenades
and the members of his trinket collection that no longer held pride of place
along the edge of his control panel. Then he’s put on his best coat and gone to
make nice.
This had been protested by said Terran brat. Vocally.
But there’s a lot of grilling, machinery, store space and walls between Peter
and the main bridge. By the time Yondu’s locked the door and gotten three
floors up, he can only just hear the yelling. Kraglin, of a race gifted – or
cursed – with earholes a bit more sensitive than most, cocks his head when
Yondu heaves himself up the ladder, and nods into the darkly-lit tunnel from
whence he came.
“That the brat?”
“Yeah. Put him in with the old trinkets.” Yondu spares a moment to look Kraglin
over. His first mate is practically vibrating. When Yondu drops a hand onto his
shoulder he jerks like he’s prodded him with a Nova-issue tazer. Yondu schools
his face into an easy grin. “Relax, would ya? Making me jittery just watching
you.”
Kraglin’s shivers don’t abate, but they decrease in frequency.
“But captain, the Hordesmen…”
“Set up a mighty pretty lil’ honeytrap. We fell for it, we gotta pay the
price.” Kraglin’s thin lips are cracked from nervous licking; now they hook
down at the corners.
“You mean… we’re giving up?” he whispers, leaning in and checking round just in
case the rest of the assembled crew – the Ravager High Command, as they’re
informally dubbed, by pretty much everyone but themselves – are listening. He
needn’t have worried. They’re all wondering the same thing anyway.
Yondu scoffs and catches Kraglin by back of the neck. He yanks him down,
banging their foreheads together in a gesture of solidarity that’s the closest
he’ll come to affection while there’s crew in the room. When he speaks, it’s
loud enough for them all to hear.
“We’re Ravagers, ain’t we?” There’s a chorus of yeses. They don’t sound
particularly enthusiastic. Yondu raises his voice a little more, injects it
with all the sadistic glee he can muster. If they’re gonna believe this’ll
work, they’ve gotta believe he believes it first. “And Ravagers don’t stop til
they’re dead! So here’s what we do – we play the perfect hosts, we nod along to
everything they say, and when they least expect it, we make ‘em regret that
they ever thought we’d be easy fucking prey! What d’you say?”
This time, the yeses are marginally more passionate. Yondu nods. It’ll have to
do.
“Alright. We’ve got five minutes before they dock, so let’s get to it. Listen
up, folks – here’s how it’s going to go down…”
***** Things Look Up *****
And go down it does.
Brilliantly.
“Captain of the Horde, Jakael Romago!”
Fucker’s even got his own herald. Yondu tries not to look too unimpressed as
the man stalks forward. He’s brought an entourage – about thirty men, all with
teleporter bands around their wrists. That’ll make things more complicated. But
heck. Complicated, fun… they’re almost synonymous when you’re in his line of
work.
“Yondu Udonta. Nice t’meet you.” He sticks out his hand. It’s ignored, in
favour of the captain looking him over. His eyes seem drawn to the implant
wedge driven into his skull. Yondu figures he might as well take the
opportunity to do the same, and gives the man a gloss from head to toe,
cataloguing the bulkiness of the mechanical limbs and the wealth of upgrades
that peek out from under his sleek black uniform. Man’s a modder, anyone can
see that. And a dedicated one too – obviously doesn’t care about looks so much
as function, given that he’s gouged out his own eyeball to replace it with an
ugly multi-function disk. Yondu’ll wager it does x-ray, thermal, night and
medical scans; probably scouts the area for Nova ships and reads minds while
it’s at it. But it sure doesn’t suit him.
“Nice eyepiece,” he says. The captain looks down his nose at him – if he didn’t
have mods, they’d probably be of a height. But fella’s obviously got a short
complex; his prosthetic arms and legs are large in comparison with his body,
elevating him above his natural stature and making him look like a hulking
metal spider.
“Your implant,” he says. “It is what allows you to control your arrow?” Okay.
Weird question, as far as the getting-to-know-you game goes. But Yondu supposes
he can’t fault him for wanting to know more about his weapon. He grins like
he’s got nothing to hide, and raps the implant with his knuckles to get a
plastic clunk.
“In a sense.”
“Hm.” The man looks… disappointed. “You are not Centaurian, then, after all.”
Behind him, his crew are exchanging glances. Nope, it’s not just him who thinks
this is a wee bit weird. Still, the Horde guards don’t seem to be questioning
their captain’s sanity, so Yondu figures he’ll roll with it.
“Born and bred. It ain’t the size of the crest –“ Or lack of it. “ – It’s what
you do with it. Trust me, this implant wouldn’t work on anyone who didn’t have
the gift to begin with.”
It’s the truth, if a rather pared down and approximated version of it. Romago
studies him a while longer, as if he’s trying to parse him down to his genes
with artificial eye alone. Maybe he is. Who knows. Whatever he finds pleases
him though, because he nods, and gestures that Yondu should lead the way to a
suitable room.
“Very well then, Udonta. If you would give me your ship’s schematics?”
That’s Kraglin’s cue; Yondu nods him forwards to hand over the holopad.
Ignoring the Hraxian completely – who is only too pleased to scurry back into
the shadows – Romago enters the initiation sequence Yondu gives him and is
treated to a small-scale three dimensional model of the Eclector, all hidey
holes and boltways included. His mechanical eye sweeps it once, documenting
every inch with insectoid clicks. His Xandarian one is still fixed on Yondu –
effect’s eerie, but Yondu’s faced a lot worse than eerie and has still come out
on top.
“Next file’s our cargo,” he says. “Estimated price, origins and best ports of
drop-off all included. After that, log of current crew. Citizenships, bounties
and the like. Comms codes are next up – input them into your earpieces, and
you’ll be able to access all external and internal relays throughout the ship.”
“Very good.” Romago scrolls away, cataloguing reams of data. “You seem well
prepared, for this.”
“Ain’t our first rodeo.” They come to the saferoom door; Yondu opens it, and
holds out his hand for Romago to enter. It says a lot for the captain’s
certainty in his victory that he does so without question.
“Hm.” Romago reaches the centre of the room and finishes his perusal in
silence, while Yondu holds his cyclops-stare and forces himself not to shuffle
his feet. When it’s done, he even offers the holopad back, nice and polite-
like. Kraglin doesn’t seem keen on stepping forwards again, so Yondu takes it
and passes it to where he and the Ravagers have crowded against the far wall.
He and Romago stand at opposite ends of the high, broad table, one faction on
one side and the other on the other. A bare light panel hangs above them, stark
and bright, sucking the colour from the rust-coloured room. Clearing his
throat, Romago leans forwards over the table and plants his oversized palms
flat. “I hope you realise that, whatever your experience in these matters, this
takeover will not be deflected.”
Ah. Here it comes. The threat. Yondu settles his expression to neutral.
“Go on. Give me a good reason not to whistle you through right here n’now.”
Although he’s already seen the teleport bracelets. No harm in letting Romago
think he’s unobservant though. Underestimation can do wonders, when you’re
playing against a winning hand.
On cue, Romago lifts his right hand up, fingers outsplayed. The metal appendage
gleams slickly under the light, digits comprised of interlocking silver-black
nuggets that are as flexible as those of any species with opposable thumbs, and
ten times as strong. The teleporter is a cuff of bland white plastic. If it
weren’t for the opal inset at its centre and the fact that every Hordesmen on
board wears one identical, it could’ve been an accessory. Yondu knows better
than to push his luck and play stupid now though. He lets out a low whistle,
impressed – enjoying how the guards flinch back. Romago, of course, holds his
ground.
“Sweet gear,” he says, nodding at the band. “Those things’re expensive to come
by.”
“Not so much that our profits from this venture won’t cover them.” Romago
lowers his arm. His fingers resettle on the tabletop, one-two-three-four,
chink-chink-chink-chink. “I assume you know how they work?”
“Yeah.” Owner presses crystal three times in succession? Sucked back to the
mothership in a blaze of white light. Owner dies? Same thing happens. “They
gonna fire if we send back your corpse?”
Romago seems unconcerned at the prospect. “Indeed.”
This is it.
This is his chance.
Now, while the bastard hasn’t got a good read on him, while he doesn’t know
what’s in character and what’s not. Yondu’s got his hands clasped behind his
back; he opens and closes his fist, pretending to be stretching his fingers
while signalling for Thrabba to ready the trigger.
“Y’know, I still ain’t convinced,” he muses. Romago raises a brow, demanding
elaboration, and Yondu happily delivers. “Eclector’s been fending off slimy
bastards like you for centuries – you think her shields can’t withstand a
little barrage?” He lets the open-ended question hang a moment. Then drops his
voice a register, growling from the back of his throat: “I’m wondering if it
might be worth calling your bluff.”
“That,” says Romago, not flustered in the slightest, “would be a very bad
idea.”
Yondu feigns an arrogant scoff. “And why’s that then?”
Bingo. The man puffs up.
“Because my ships are outfitted with an arsenal stolen from the Nova militia
themselves. Having studied your schematics…” he gives the holopad in Kraglin’s
hands a dismissive point, “I’m afraid that we would be through your shield in
seconds.”
“Oh yeah?”
Romago’s Xandarian eye is as cool as a glacier when he turns it on him. But
Yondu imagines he can see a flicker of annoyance there. Excellent. “Oh, yes.”
Yondu smirks. “Say I don’t believe you.”
“Then I shall prove it to you.” Romalgo lifts a hand to the comms device on his
chest, mechanical eye whirring as he brings up the image of the Eclector’s
codes. He inputs them, shoots a quick broadcast to the rest of his crew – who
obediently tap the codes into their own pieces – and then directs his voice up
to the flotilla of Horde warships suspended in the aether. “A warning volley,
Miss Lazgha. Along the top flank, if you please.”
There’s a chitter of chatter as Miss Lazgha confirms. Yondu patiently counts
the seconds as the charge builds. Then he shoots Thrabba a thumbs up behind his
back. Thrabba, by luck or skill – probably the former – manages to detonate the
tiny explosive they’d rigged to the comms circuits, just as the shots smack
home. The whole ship judders and groans, like a wounded Chitauri-whale. There’s
a splintering burst of feedback in Yondu’s ear. He effects a surprised flinch.
“Shit!”
Grim expression tinged with just the faintest hint of pleasure, Romago flicks
the transmitter on his device. “Thank you, Miss Lazgha.”
There’s no reply.
Romago flicks it again. “Miss Lazgha.” Then again. “Miss Lazgha, report.”
All the box picks up is static. There’s a blank moment, while the other
Hordesmen and Ravagers check their equipment and find it all resoundingly
useless, during which time both of Romago’s eyes, meat and mechanoid alike,
latch ominously onto Yondu’s. He doesn’t break the gaze. This is it. Fly or
fall. Either Romago believes his firepower’s just that superior, or he suspects
that Yondu’s playing him for a fool. And if he does suspect… Well, Yondu
wouldn’t bet on the man being overconfident enough to make the deception easy.
He’s too smart for that. Too calculating.
But maybe, just maybe, he can still salvage this.
“Try the back-up relay,” he snaps at Morlug. Zqo translates it into sign
language with a flutter of purple-scaled hands, because Morlug ain’t too good
at reading Xandarian off people’s lips yet. She gets the message quick and hops
to, nodding to show she’s understood what he’s saying... and what he’s really
saying. It’s better her than Thrabba, because Thrabba’s just dumb enough that
he might actually fix the bloody thing and scupper their one hope at getting
out of this while he’s at it.
Morlug flips the wall panel open. She pops the screwdriver out of her utility
belt, and proceeds to make a suitable mess of the circuitry within. “Anything?”
That’s a circle of the hands, a crooked index to simulate the question. Morlug
shakes her head and lifts her hands in a definitive x. Zqo puts it into words,
succinct as ever, and more for Romago’s sake than his own -
“No luck, boss. S’fried, alright.”
“Damn.” Yondu turns to Romago with a growl. “Y’know, when you send a warning
shot, it’s usually good etiquette to not actually break the fucking ship you’re
firing on.”
His sneer is returned with a placid stare. “Yet it would be common sense not to
over-exaggerate the strength of your shields when you know a warning shot is
about to be made. Common sense which I am well aware that you possess.” The
Horde captain lets out a gushing breath. It’s echoed as air releases from the
mod-valves drilled into the side of his neck. “Why, Yondu Udonta, I must admit
– I had expected something cleverer.”
Yondu tenses. His palms have been sweating for a while now, but now they’re
practically dripping. He doesn’t dare wipe them on his coat – too much of a
tell – but he does let his fingers brush the flap, feeling for the familiar
bump of an arrowhead.
If this goes south, if Romago twists his teleporter…
But Romago just shakes his half-shaven head. The light glances off the metal
plates he’s had inlaid in his skull. “Attempting to devalue your ship by
damaging it is hardly going to dissuade me. I’m not interested in the Eclector
for its defensive or offensive capabilities – both of which are significantly
subpar when compared to my own fleet.”
“Still don’t stop us from pulling the biggest jobs,” someone – Horuz? – mutters
from behind them. Yondu hears a scuffle of feet, a smack of fist on leather, a
sulky ‘ow’. Good ol’ Kraglin.
Romago is gentleman enough to ignore the interruption. “I’m here for one
purpose and one purpose only. To prove that I can outmanoeuvre you.”
Grinning, Yondu clasps a hand to his chest. “Aw! I’m flattered! Always
appreciate when someone puts a bit of effort into these things, y’know.” Romago
gives him the dead-eyed stare of the unimpressed. “No seriously. Congrats on
getting this far.”
“You say that as if you believe we won’t get further.”
“You say that as if you’re surprised,” Yondu mocks back. Then grins, as if he’s
trying to diffuse the tension, and leans forwards conspiratorially over the
table. “C’mon, let me have my bravado. Ain’t got much else, do I? And it keeps
the men happy.”
“You care for your men,” Romago observes. Yondu’s careful not to tense up to
visibly, when he sees his fleshy eye flicks over them, one by one. Horuz. Isla.
Thrabba. Zqo, who’s signing for Morlug. Morlug.
Kraglin.
“Kinda hard to run a ship without a crew,” he points out. That disturbingly
normal-looking pupil draws back in his direction, as he drums his fingers on
the table edge. “They get the job done. That’s all that matters, right? Ain’t
no point getting attached, when they could all be gone tomorrow.”
“Indeed.” Romago watches his nails bounce off the scuffed metal. “Sentiment is
so… disappointing, in those of our calibre.” There’s something about his gaze
Yondu doesn’t like, something prickly and predatory. But then Romago blinks,
and the feeling’s gone. Yondu puts it from his mind. No use relying on the
viscerals now. It’ll be his head that’ll get them out of this – once he figures
out a way to get those damn teleportation bands off, that is. So Yondu forces a
sharp grin of agreement.
“S’what I keep telling them. Out in the void, you compromise yourself for one
person, you compromise everything.”
“Wise.” Romago considers his chrome cuticles. “I must admit to being intrigued,
about how a being from a planetbound race of extinct savages came to be so.”
There it is again. That strange… interest. He can tell Kraglin’s picked up on
it too; there’s a soft snort at the word ‘savage’ that echoes the one in his
mind. Yondu shuffles a little taller. He wants to know his bloody life story?
Yondu can spin him a half-dozen yarns off the top of his head. He settles on
something simple and suitably obscure.
“Guess that’s what happens when you take a blank slate and toss it out into the
universe,” he says, affecting an easy shrug. “It learns, or it breaks.”
“Hm. How very true.” And for the first time, Romago smiles. It’s such an
unpracticed, emotionless movement that Yondu almost mistakes it for an
involuntary muscle spasm from a mod-surge. “I think I would regret killing you.
Would you submit to being my second?” Yondu’s grin grows.
“Not likely.”
“Very well.” A slow curl of those fingers; shavings scrape from the table in
metallic curls. “I am disappointed, but expected nothing less. Meegra?”
A Skrull male steps forwards. He’s got a box tucked under one arm, a slender
grey oblong. Yondu squints at it, but can’t see any markings or definitive
signs on it other than the old-style mechanical lock on its hood. Romago’s eye
whirls to focus on the shape of the arrow at his waist. “And now, to ensure
your co operation for the rest of this process… If you would?”
So that goes in there. Whatever material they’ve found that can block yaka-
connection… that’s something. They’re certainly not unprepared.
Yondu whistles his arrow over in a short spurt, just fast enough to make Meegra
squeak. His lizard-skin arms tremble, unlatched box held away as far as he can
reach. Yondu keeps the glowing weapon hovering a moment longer – then smiles,
nastily, and lets it drop. The relief on Meegra’s face as the box snaps shut is
palpable. Romago, though, is watching with one grey finger tracing the sparse
hairs on his upper lip.
“Whistle again,” he orders.
Yondu, parking his ass on the table like he ain’t got a care, raises his
eyebrows and does so. Then again. And again. Absolutely nothing. Not a pulse,
not a glow. His implant’s as dead and silent as a powered-down M-ship, and
there’s no answering rattle from inside the box neither.
It is, not that Yondu would admit it, mildly unnerving.
“That’s new,” he says. Romago’s smile is cold.
“Indeed. As you can tell, I have expended considerable effort and wealth on
this venture – it would be wise for your men not to underestimate that.” Yeah.
This ain’t gonna be no walk in the park, that’s for sure. Yondu racks his
brains, running through anything that could possibly shine a ray of light into
this shithole, and draws repetitive blanks.
Arrow, out of commission.
Crew, on lockdown or here at gunpoint.
Ship, outnumbered and liable to be blown to smithereens.
Heck, the only wild card Yondu’s got up his metaphorical sleeve is one puny
Terran brat, who’s about as annoying as he is useless…
… Or perhaps not so useless as he thought. Fucking jackpot.
Romago tilts his head back, surveying Yondu over the bridge of his aqualine
nose. He has to fight to keep his expression serene as the man continues his
monologue; he’s fucking jubilant on the inside, victory already in his pocket.
Yes. It’s fucking genius – he’ll never expect; not that…
“As for what will happen to you - we shall deliver you and your men to the Nova
Corps, collecting on your bounties. Rest assured that the choice to banish a
fellow captain from the aether is not made lightly.”
It’s better than being told they’re due for execution. Yondu shrugs and says
so, wondering on some abstract level whether trying too hard to look like he’s
trying too hard not to look worried, will tip Romago off to the plan on his
backburner by a twist of cosmic irony. The now fully formed plan.
It seems the universe must have a bright future for him. After all, they’ve
left the tools for Yondu’s success in two neatly pre-packaged bundles, in the
supply closet next to Peter’s.
Handy thing about having a deaf-mute member on the high command: everyone gets
pretty damn proficient with sign language.
E-M-P, Yondu spells out behind his back. Then, in case they get the wrong idea
– small! Shake of the fist for emphasis. Heck, but they don’t need to take out
the damn life support system on top of all their other problems. 6 levels down.
2 remaining. Cupboard next to noise. If they can’t work out what ‘noise’ is,
Peter’s got less stamina than Yondu gives him credit for. Kraglin, thankfully,
gets the hint immediately.
“Uh, boss?”
Yondu schools his face into irritation. “What? Busy here, in case you ain’t
noticed.” He spots Romago out of the corner of his eye, leaning back on his
heels and watching the interaction with undisguised interest. One wrong move…
Thankfully, Kraglin plays the part of the browbeaten subordinate well:
swallowing and pulling at his collar, eyes darting all over the place, before
mustering up the guts to reply.
“Mind if I take a bathroom break?” he asks. “I just, uh, I mean that this’s
been dragging on a while, and ah, doc’s got me on some new meds after I took
that gutshot on the Milhex job…” He trails off, gesturing helplessly at his
crotch. Yondu just about manages to keep a straight face.
“You a fucking infant, Obfonteri?” he spits.
Kraglin’s head droops. “No, sir.”
“You think I give two shits about your dick right now?”
His first mate shakes his head, setting the Mohawk aquiver. “No, sir, but
please –“
“It ain’t me you have t’ask for permission now, is it?” Yondu interrupts. Like
he’s lecturing schoolchildren. Or Peter. Yes, that’s it. If he channels the
aura of irascibility generated by the Terran brat’s presence, he might be able
to get through this without choking on a laugh. Kraglin, a professional at this
game, nods. He lifts his chin, timidly catching Romago’s eyes.
“Sir, please; I’m on medication…”
Romago, savvy as ever, flicks through the medical records Yondu’d given him.
When he’s isolated the file with Kraglin’s surly mugshot attached, he projects
it onto the table top with his mechanical eye, and gives it a rapid sift. The
story holds – because it is true. Kraglin’d come a cropper while dealing with
sales out in the Milhex waste, and had been dragged into Doc’s surgery with a
hole the size of a nickel punched through his belly, complaining that he was
fine the whole time. Only thing left out of the file is that which Yondu alone
knows, and that’s that Kraglin’s been pouring the sugary gunk Doc prescribed
him down the drains every chance he gets, because it makes him piss like a
horse and he don’t like the taste.
Romago makes another of his double sighs, valves hissing, and waves two of his
guards forwards. “Meegra. Klau. Accompany him. The nearest lavatories are…” a
quick check of the maps, “… the floor below. If he attempts to go anywhere
else, shoot him.”
Yondu shakes his head. “Nah – he’ll need to head six floors down. At least.” He
takes care to sound exasperated. He can’t plead dodgy plumbing – Romago would
expect that to be highlighted on the map. So he settles for – “Doc keeps a
stash of back-up meds there. I’m guessin’ you wouldn’t want him heading to the
medbay? What with all them scalpels and such…”
“It would be pointless to attempt resistance,” Romago is quick to remind them.
He examines Kraglin critically, a new lens folding out across the metal eye
like the wing of a newly-hatched fly. “But I suppose it’s safer to prevent a
fool like this from being tempted, and jeopardizing our arrangement. Very
well.” To the guards – “Take him wherever he wishes.” To Kraglin – and by
definition, to the rest of them too – “But remember. If one cadaver arrives on
my ship, reinforcements will dock and assume that all of your men are hostile.
And if my cadaver were to appear…”
“Boom,” Yondu finishes. Romago’s smile is sickly-satisfied.
“Indeed. Have a safe trip.” Yondu nods to Kraglin, and Kraglin remembers to
look to Romago first before considering himself dismissed. He all but scampers
for the doors, the Hordesmen guards on his heels.
Only two of them. Still, so long as the rest stay in a nice huddle, one EMP
should take ‘em all out. All this means is Kraglin’s less likely to be
pulverized when his new buddies realise he’s disabled their ride home.
Not that Yondu’s worried or nothing. And he wouldn’t be. Not if Romago had sent
half his army. Pff. Nah. Kraglin can handle himself. Two Horde goons? They
haven’t got a prayer.
For now, Yondu’s got other things to worry about. This farce of a negotiation,
for one. Space bandit merging is rarely a pretty business, but it’s always
riddled with potholes, and for both sides. You can’t just take two bands of
diverse folks with diverse rules, united only through a common love of taking
other people’s property, and expect them all to hold hands and sing Kum Buy Yah
(that being another favourite of Peter’s, although he only remembers two
lines). If Romago’s gonna fall for this, Yondu’s going to have to treat this
like the real deal – which means he’s gonna have to haggle.
“So,” he begins. “Once me and my main men’ve broken out the Kyln and are
kickin’ again, how soon can we start up business?”
***** Lights, EMPs, Rifles, Action *****
The trip below decks is uneventful. Remaining crew’s all quartered, and the few
worried, pale moons of faces that peep at Kraglin and his entourage from behind
locked hatches are ignored. His guards don’t register them as a threat,
confident in the dissuasion of their teleport-bands. Kraglin just narrows his
eyes at any he sees, willing them to stay put and not do anything stupid.
“Down ‘ere,” he says, kicking the pressure pad for the trapdoor. It unlocks
with a deepset clunk. One of his guards – Meegra? Klau? He can’t remember, and
they’re indistinguishable, a Tweedledum-Tweedledee duo of Skrull twins – kneels
to haul it out the way. Kraglin’s tempted to plant a boot in his back and pitch
him into the gaping hole beneath. But it ain’t as far as it looks to the deck
below. And anyway, they’ve got a plan. Until captain gives the word, he’ll
stick to it.
Klau – or possibly Meegra – gestures him into the pit with the barrel of his
plasma rifle. Kraglin finds the first foothold, and begins the familiar
downwards climb.
“Mind your feet,” he tells them, when he’s halfway. The cramped area between
floors has opened up into a brutalist pipe-lined corridor, unlit except for the
dull glint of emergency beacons. “Rung here’s bit dodgy.”
Meegra-Klau grunts something that could possibly be a thanks. They descend into
the dark.
Peter’s apparently decided to save his voice for someone who cares. Kraglin’s
just glad that the EMPs are in the cupboard next door – thwarting the Terran’s
inevitable bid for escape would put a serious crimp in the whole detonate-
grenade-and-wrestle-guns-away-before-you-end-up-with-another-hole-in-you thing
he’s got planned. He steps off the ladder, cracking his shoulders with his
hands stretched over his head, and hops to one side to let Meegra-Klau and
Klau-Meegra down. “Over here,” he says quietly, and lopes into the shadows.
Ship’s eerie in lockdown. Little light. Little noise – save the constant beat
of the engines, which throbs deep in the Eclector’s bowels like the pulse of a
five-chambered heart, keeping their generators turning and their life-support
churning with the power of the dying star. Kraglin’s internalised the sound by
now. It’s less than white noise – if it weren’t there, he’d feel on edge, but
he wouldn’t be able to tell you why.
Keeping his footsteps soft – no need to alert his guards to Peter’s presence by
setting him off on one, not if he doesn’t have to – he pads across the hallway
and skims his fingers over the doors until he finds the locker he’s looking
for. Yondu’d said he’d put Peter in with a bunch of old trinkets – not his
wisest idea, if he expects to find ‘em in any state resembling whole. That
leaves two cupboards to check, one on either side. Kraglin cups his hands over
the dark glass and strains until his eyes ache, but finally makes out the
distinct spherical mounds of two antique EMP grenades, sitting on the shelf in
the right-hand locker.
“This one,” he says. Meegra-Klau and Klau-Meegra nod. “Mind if I…?” Another
nod. He’s nosed forwards with the tip of Klau-Meegra’s blaster – it seems they
want to get back to their captain as soon as possible. Kraglin seconds the
notion.
He settles his fingertips on the palm-reader, which scans his prints, deems him
to be of high enough rank (and in close enough cahoots with the captain) to be
granted access, and opens the door in a whoosh of refrigerated air. Kraglin
shivers. Hopefully the locker next door ain’t a cold-cupboard too, or else he
might need to give Peter a lil’ nudge before leaving. Just in case the brat’s
fallen asleep on them permanently. Still, he supposes this one’s got a reason
to be cold, given that the doc has used it for med supplies in the past. Thank
god their schematics aren’t completely up-to-date.
Kraglin worms into the small, claustrophobic space, making it look like he’s
getting close to read the labels on the prescription bottles – which are
actually tiny boxes of spare ammunition, any gauge in the galaxy, but what his
guards don’t know can’t hurt them – while also conveniently blocking their view
of the EMPs.
Now… how’s he gonna pull this off?
Ain’t no point taking out their teleporters if they just shoot him anyway and
then go blabbing to top deck. And there’s only two of the damn things, one of
which will be needed for the saferoom. He’s gonna have to ace this in one try.
Kraglin’s always liked a challenge.
“Hey, c’mere!” he calls, beckoning the nearest guard over. “Can’t read none of
these fucking things. Got a good pair of eyes on you?”
Meegra looks at Klau. Klau looks at Meegra. Meegra pulls up his shoulders in
the galaxy-wide ‘well, what’s he gonna do?’ pose. Klau nods. Klau steps
forwards, into the cupboard. Klau looks over Kraglin’s shoulder, blinking at
the darkness. Klau spots the EMP grenade. Klau’s mouth opens to shout…
And Kraglin pushes the detonator, grabs the muzzle of his rifle and holds it
past him nose-down towards the floor, and crouches into a ball.
The EMP goes off, with a noise not unlike a regurgitating badoon. An angry
screech rips out of Meegra – Kraglin winces; there’ll be no avoiding dealing
with Quill now – and he points his gun wildly into the cranny of the locker,
unable to tell which limb belongs to his brother and which to the Ravager
enemy. Of course, EMPs of this age ain’t gonna knock out a plasma rifle –
things are as souped-up top-notch Nova issue as the rest of the Hordesmen’s
gear. But for little circuits? Earpieces? Flashlights? Teleporters? They don’t
have a chance.
Panicking, Klau makes to fire his weapon. It’s what Kraglin’s been waiting for.
He grimly twists up, angling the nozzle so that the edge of the shelf reflects
Klau’s green frilled chin. The blast, designed to only effect biotic tissue,
rebounds and smacks him right in the face. His head explodes, a geyser of green
blood, and the only sound is Meegra’s agonized shrieks as he empties round
after round into the locker.
His brother’s body is shredded by the time he pauses, Kraglin still intact
beneath it. Much more and the corpse’ll come apart and leave him exposed – but
Kraglin’s relying on Meegra actually wanting something of his twin to send off
into deepspace. And that his weapon ain’t running on full juice.
The universe is on his side.
The seconds tick by. Then – “Come out,” Meegra calls. Kraglin grins. Perfect.
He stays right where he is.
“I said come out!” Meegra’s voice raises. He may have just lost a brother, he
may be furious – but he’s a professional, and he ain’t gonna let his grief
compromise him when the perpetrator’s still at large. Kraglin prises the top of
the ammo-pot and waits. There’s a loud exhalation. The clump of steel-toed
boots. Then the eye of a plasma rifle edges into the locker, followed by the
rest of Meegra. Kraglin waits until the barrel’s about to nudge Klau’s shredded
soldier. He hears Meegra’s boot lift up, about to make the next step that will
carry him forwards and allow him to aim over his brother’s corpse and deliver a
round directly into Kraglin’s skull.
He flings a handful of bullets under the sole.
Meegra’s face would be comic, if it wasn’t obscured by shadow. “Wha-?”
Then he’s going over, stumbling backwards, arms windmilling but not finding
balance. His plasma rifle goes off once, twice – the shots rebound through the
corridor, getting smaller and smaller but no less deadly, before eventually
dissipating into the floor grates. Kraglin holds his breath. He waits until he
hears Meegra moan – then shoves Klau away in a burst of strength, staggers to
his feet, and finishes Meegra with a shot from his dead brother’s rifle. He
straps the last EMP to his belt, kicking aside the other’s humming carcass, and
hikes the rifle over one shoulder, checking its latent charge. Ain’t much power
left, but who knows. Could turn the tides a bit.
He leaves the corpses where they lay.
Kraglin’s got his knees through the trapdoor by the time he remembers Peter.
His face scrunches in indecision. “Shit.”
To go back, or not to go back? Peter’s Schrodinger’s Terran at the moment;
without opening that cupboard, he’s got no idea how he’s faring. Which leaves
him with a choice. Leave a hypothermic Terran to cough up his last while
Kraglin goes to rescue captain or crew? Or face an irritating, very much alive
and eager-for-freedom Terran, and somehow keep him restrained while conducting
said rescue?
Holding yourself up above ten metres of air and a hard, unforgiving floor ain’t
the best place to hold an internal debate. Kraglin heaves himself out, hooks
his hands around his knees, and thinks.
Peter.
Captain.
Crew.
One might definitely die. The others at least, he know’ll be able to handle
themselves five minutes longer. Yondu might smack him over the head for being
slow when all this’s over and the Horde ships are eating their dust, but he’ll
do a helluva lot worse if he finds Peter cold and bloodless. Even if he’d deny
it.
And yeah, yeah, the kid ain’t all that bad. Sometimes.
It’ll only take a second. Kraglin unhooks the clunky EMP and settles it next to
the blaster – no sense dropping one or the other, and rendering ‘em useless –
and scrambles down the ladder once again.
Less than thirty seconds later, he’s scrambling back up, panic inscribed onto
every line in his face.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Peter ain’t dead. Peter ain’t even dying. Oh no, it’s worse than that – much,
much worse.
Peter isn’t there. And when he gets back, the plasma rifle isn’t either.
***** Peter Happened *****
Chapter Summary
     Things heat up...
     Peter is an idiot. Yondu is annoyed. My delightful OC villain begins
     to show his true colors.
      
      
     CW: hints of pedophilia from the creepy bad guy.
      
      
     If anyone doesn't want to read this (or the next chapter) for
     triggery reasons, please notify me in the comments and I can make
     brief footnotes.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Negotiations are going… as well as can be expected. Yondu’s stalling for time,
but without looking like he’s stalling for time; he’s well aware that it ain’t
gonna matter what he acquiesces to once Kraglin’s back with EMP in tow, but if
he just blindsides Romago with a barrage of yeses the Horde captain’s gonna
smell a rat.
And so – the game continues.
“M’guessin’ you’re gonna want a number of my men for yerself? Bolster your
ranks, that sorta thing?”
Romago’s flat mouth spells out the obviousness of the question. Yondu holds his
hands up in deference. “Yeah, of course you do. Alright. New recruits’re
probably your best bet – aint’t too loyal, or nothing. Although, y’can take yer
pick, to be honest. Everyone’s only in it for the money anyway, right?” And it
doesn’t matter too much which captain’s sitting at the helm. Yondu likes to
think his rep’s a bit better than Romago’s though. If people are choosing
between wily leather-clad mercenaries for jobs better left unspoken of, it’s
his name that’s at the top of the list. Enough so that Romago’d risk flying
into Novaspace to collect on his bounty.
Yondu grins to himself. Yeah. He’s good.
Heck, once he’s done here and Romago’s head’s mounted front-and-centre on his
M-ship exterior, a gristly hood ornament, he’ll be even better.
He’s just fathoming the heights his bounty’s likely to soar to after he wards
off this ambush – might even see the sweet side of a million! – when the door
crashes open. Expecting an EMP to come soaring through, Yondu makes ready to
lunge for the box storing his arrow. He never makes it. Because no EMP arrives.
Instead, a Terran stumbles through the gap, grinning like a loon and hefting a
plasma rifle over one shoulder that’s almost as big as he is.
A plasma rifle which is, with room for waver, pointing at Captain Romago.
Yondu could fucking eviscerate something. Preferably something small and
strawberry blonde that answers to ‘boy’, ‘Terran’, ‘Peter’, and more often than
not, ‘oi, you’.
He settles for swearing. Loudly.
“What the fucking fuck are you doin’ here, boy?”
“Saving you!” chirps Peter. The barrel of his rifle wobbles alarmingly at the
space between him and the Horde captain. His finger’s resting inside the
trigger guard – idiot! – and if he pulls it, hitting anything’s gonna be the
last of his worries, because the rebound’ll rip off his arm. Yondu scowls.
“Oh no you ain’t. Put that gun back where you found it. Now.”
Peter reddens.
“I’m trying to help!”
“But you ain’t.”
Damn. Couldn’t the brat have stayed in the cupboard? Was that really too much
to ask? Sure, it weren’t exactly designed with a living creature’s comfort in
mind, and okay, perhaps the air inside had been a little nippier than he’d
imagined, but still…
A thousand times better in there, than out here.
Unfortunately, wishing for the past to change’s about as useful as a chocolate
rocket booster. Also unfortunately, Romago’s less interested in the weapon
that’s dithering between his chest and the far wall, and more interested in the
small creature behind it.
“And what,” he asks, voice lilting with curiosity, “is this?”
“I’m human!” says Peter proudly.
“Terran,” Yondu corrects. The name given to any uncontacted species. Folks
don’t get self-defining rights until they start travelling the galaxy – which
he supposes Peter’s technically doing. But hey, he’s just a brat; he don’t
count. Anyway, kid’s fun to tease. “Planet-bound from a little backwater
system. Locals call their main rock ‘Earth’. You probably haven’t heard of it.”
If anything, Romago’s smile grows. “Indeed, I have not. Boy – Terran – what’s
your name?”
Peter’s surprised by the recognition – he’s used to being shoved to the side
whenever Yondu’s handling business. Perhaps this guy’s not as bad as he seems.
He lets the barrel of his rifle dip a little. On purpose, this time.
“Peter,” he says. “Peter Jason Quill. Nice t’meet ya.” He can’t exactly shake
the guy’s hand when he’s holding a gun on him, but it’s the thought that
counts. Before he can ask for a name in return though, Yondu’s cutting in.
“Ignore him, he ain’t nobody important.” Asshole. “Just a brat who we let tag
round.”
Peter pouts. Who was it who abducted him in the first place?
“He ain’t gonna shoot nobody,” Yondu continues, palms upheld appeasingly.
“Don’t even know how yet.” Now, that’s just tempting fate. Yondu carries on
though, undaunted and uncaring, pointing at Peter with a broken blue nail.
“Look, he’ll put the rifle down if I tell ‘im. Then one o’my boys can keep an
eye on him while we all keep negotiatin’…”
“Who says I can’t shoot?” Peter asks, daringly. A look from Yondu gives him his
answer. He holds the rifle aloft a moment longer – but only a moment. There’s
no saying no to that glare. Scowling, he stomps over and drops it on the table
with a clatter.
Okay. Maybe he hasn’t had his gun-training. Yet. But really, whose fault is
that? He’s smart, right? He’s sure he could figure it out if they gave him the
chance!
And anyway, he’s yet to see any of them come up with anything better.
Yondu seems to relax the moment barrel meets table. It’s weird, seeing him look
so tense without his eyes or implant glowing – Peter guesses the box on the
table and distinct lack of arrow might have something to do with that.
“There, see?” he says to Romago. “Now, let’s get back to it…”
But Romago is stroking his chin with a metal knuckle. “Oh no.” His eyes haven’t
left Peter’s yet, metal and flesh alike. Peter, curious, cocks his head and
deepens the stare. “I think I’d like to hear more about this… Peter.”
Yondu snorts out a laugh. It sounds jovial. Mocking, almost; but Peter’s been
interpreting Yondu’s laughter near-on five years now. He knows when it means
someone’s about to die, and when things are liable to start exploding. He also
recognises when it’s forced. “Really, there ain’t much to tell. Was flying by
Terra on a job and the boys got hungry, so we decided to try out some local
cuisine… This one amused us, so we kept ‘im.”
That’s… not how Peter remembers it. In fact, he has the distinct impression of
being called cargo for a fortnight, before Yondu’d dumped a Ravager coat over
his shoulders – the one he’s still growing into, which’d all but smothered him
back then; perhaps that’d been the man’s intention – and started calling him
crew instead. He’s about to open his mouth and deliver his side of the tale,
when he catches Morlug’s eye. She stares at him solemnly, and shakes her head.
Peter’s more confused than ever. But he keeps shtum – if only because Morlug’s
one of the rare crew member’s who’s never threatened to boil, roast, gut, or
otherwise prepare him for consumption (and not just by dint of not being able
to speak). He almost likes her.
“What’s so… amusing, about him?” asks Romago.
There’s something about the inflection on that word, as if he’s saying
something without actually saying it. Peter’s young enough to pick up on that,
even if he can’t say what that something is. He crooks his eyebrows at Morlug,
who’s got Zqo translating, and is surprised to see that her spine’s stiffened
and she looks mildly ill. Does she have space-sickness, or something? But
again, she shakes her head when Peter makes to inquire. And again, Peter stays
silent. He watches Yondu instead.
Yondu’s posture’s relaxed, deceptively so. “He’s a decent singer,” he says.
“Terrans like their music.”
Peter can’t help but cut in this time. But it’s justified; if they’re
discussing his talents, nobody knows them better than himself. “I dance, too!”
he chirps. Then frowns as Morlug’s head shake becomes a side-to-side thrash.
Even Yondu winces. Romago, however, smiles and prowls forwards.
“Do you,” he purrs.
Why’s everyone looking at him weird? Romago’s asked a question though; it’d be
rude not to answer. “Yeah!”
“Would you demonstrate?”
“What, now? With them all watching?” Romago nods. Peter deflates. “I’m not so
good without my music…”
“Well. Perhaps you and I could find your music and retire elsewhere, and you
could show me in private.”
Peter’s about to tell him that’s a great idea, but he’s got no idea where
Yondu’s hidden his Walkman this time – the bastard’s idea of a joke, or
‘training’ as he calls it. It occurs approximately once a month, and sure
Peter’s gotten damn good at finding things, but the Eclector’s a big ship and
he knows the crew conspire to move it when he gets warm, to prolong their week
of Ooga-chaka-free peace. Even if they all deny it.
But Yondu’s stepping forwards again, and this time he’s not even pretending to
be friendly. Peter’s stomach shrivels a little at the sight. Not that he’s
scared of the big blue bastard or anything. But he’ll admit that he can look
pretty damn formidable when he wants to.
“That’s enough,” Yondu says. His voice is flat and low; that more than anything
tells Peter that Romago’s in trouble. Why, he has no idea. He sniggers to
himself – perhaps Yondu’s scared Romago’ll be so impressed by Peter’s dancing
that he’ll name him part of his crew, and he and Peter’ll fly off into the
knotty galactic nebula while Yondu’s made to walk the plank!
Or get chucked out an airlock. However space pirates off each other.
Romago’s gaze snaps away from Peter. “I do not think that you are in any
position to be giving orders, Udonta.”
“P’raps not. But that Terran kid ain’t gonna be much interest to you.”
Romago licks his lips. “Oh, every rare species is of interest to me.” Even his
tongue’s got a thread of metal wound through it, Peter notices with an
intrigued shiver. Modded people are so cool. Yondu takes another step. One of
the guards lifts his rifle pointedly, to aim at his chest, but Yondu glares
past his head, ignoring him.
“Yeah well. There’s seven billion more where he came from,” he tells Romago,
voice rough and urgent. “He’s practically common. And they ain’t too far from
crawling off their mudball neither – give it a decade, and everyone and their
ma will have had a go at one.”
“Hey! We’ve already had men on the moon!” Peter pipes up. If Yondu’s gonna
hypothesize at the intergalactic future of the human race, he could at least
get his facts right. Yondu doesn’t tell him to shut up like he normally would
though. In fact, he jerks his thumb at the kid in grim satisfaction.
“There. Y’hear that? Already on their moon. How long before they make contact
with an Empire? Five years? Four?”
Romago’s fingers chime off the metal plate set into his jaw. He tilts his head,
assessing Peter from every angle like he’s examining a cut of meat. Peter,
shrinking a little in his boots, is suddenly not nearly so confident; he can’t
help but wonder if all he’s achieved over the past five minutes is to make yet
another enemy who wants to eat him.
“But for now, a planetbound is a true delicacy…” The Horde captain’s eyes flick
to Yondu; there’s something deeply unsettling about his smile, but Peter can’t
put a finger on what. Yondu, for his part, is projecting an unconcern so
tangible that even Peter can tell is artificial. “I would only ask for one
session. Call it a… a trade agreement, if you will. The Terran, for your life
and your men.”
Damn. Because Yondu’ll totally do it, the bastard.
Peter’s breathing picks up; he curls his toes in their thick sweat-damp socks
and wishes he had his music to ground himself, distract himself, anything, as
he waits for the damning words.
Go on then. Have fun. Don’t eat both arms; his right one’s still useful for
pickpocketing.
They never come. Yondu doesn’t look at Peter once. Just keeps glowering
steadily up at the Horde captain.
“You mean you’d settle for Terran when there’s a Centaurian offering?” he asks.
There’s a quiet noise of dissent from Zqo. Morlug makes a distressed circle
between her pinkie and her thumb. Even Horuz looks disturbed. Isla’s the one to
voice whatever they’re thinking, stepping forwards, two of her three hands
fisted: “Captain, you can’t –“
“Shut up,” Yondu says. He doesn’t look at them either. “Ain’t your decision to
make.” It’s his, says the unspoken words. Along with the rest of the Ravagers,
Peter turns to Romago. The human side of his face is petrified, like a mask cut
from synth-flesh. But the verdict is written in the lens cap covering his
cybernetic eye, which whirls in a sudden frenzy, the metal muscles dovetailing
his pupil wide.
He’s interested.
Peter’s knees quiver; he doesn’t know whether to be relieved or more afraid.
“You, for the boy,” Romago confirms. When his fingers flex, the metal knuckles
groan. Yondu jerks his chin up in the affirmative, and Romago’s eye zooms,
reconfigures, zooms again. “Yes,” the Horde captain breathes. His expression
isn’t so much hungry as ravenous. “I believe that would be a fair exchange.”
And that’s that.
Chapter End Notes
     Next chapter ain't gonna be pleasant. You absolutely don't need to
     read it though. I'll upload a non-non-con (double negative...?)
     chapter next time too.
***** It Can Only Get Better From Here (NON-CON) *****
Chapter Summary
     PLEASE SKIP THIS CHAPTER IF NON-CONSENSUAL SEX (RAPE) IS IN ANY WAY
     TRIGGERING TO YOU. 
     Because that's what this is. And it's relentless and awful and the
     product of a hell of a lot of exam stress and rage at other issues in
     the author's life. Basically absolute overkill. It's also COMPLETELY
     SKIPPABLE. You will not miss one thing.
      
     I mean, the gist of what happens is pretty damn clear, but in case
     you want the footnotes: Romago rapes Yondu. There's a little eensy
     bit of character development in there, but honestly, that's about it.
      
     (Feel free to tell me how awful I am in the comments)
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Romago passes his hand over the door panel, once to close it, twice to lock.
Yondu bounces on the bed when he sits, subtly kicking one of Kraglin’s boots,
left over from their last romp, into the recess beneath. He breathes in and
out, and tries not to think too hard about what he’s gotten himself into. Damn
it, Peter.
If the kid could’ve stayed put. If he’d only listened, for once… Being angry at
the Terran is easier than fretting about whatever bodymods Romago’s embellished
with down below. Or thinking about Romago at all. Or him and Romago. In bed.
His bed. His and Kraglin’s bed, three nights a week or thereabouts.
Ah, fuck it.
If he can’t avoid thinking about it, they might as well get this over with.
Yondu, back resolutely turned on his soon-to-be partner, slips his coat off his
shoulders, bundles it and tosses it to one side, and starts working on his
belts. “Y’know,” he says conversationally, “this whole ‘screwing rare species’
thing’s a bit odd.”
“Really.” There’s a whirring rasp, a zip being undrawn. Yondu refuses to look.
“Hey, if you wanna fuck all the rare species in the galaxy be my guest… But
most of ‘em ain’t exactly what you and I call compatible.”
“You are,” says Romago. Heck, what Yondu wouldn’t give to sprout tentacles
right now.
His ears track the Xandarian as he steps around the bed, bare metal feet
clacking on the floor. A neatly folded jacket is placed over Yondu’s coat. It’s
black, sleek, fitted, where his is red and worn and cracked around the elbows.
Yondu focusses on that contrast as a body settles besides him, and cold metal
fingers wrap around his wrist. Romago removes his hands from the buckles with
laughable ease – damn fake mod-strength, he wouldn’t be able to lift me if he
was still a scrawny Xandarian. His thigh brushes Yondu’s and he curls an arm
around his torso with a slow, pleased exhale. The teleporter winks at him with
an opalline eye, like it’s reminding him of what’s at stake – as if Yondu could
forget. Metal digs through the thick fabric of his shirt.
Yondu ignores it all. He stares straight ahead as Romago takes over where he
left off, picking out leather straps from between metal teeth until the belt
peels apart in his hands. Yondu’s left in undershirt, pants and boots. It’s
weird to feel underdressed when the other person’s already down to their boxers
– which Yondu’s doing everything he can not to look at. But with the way Romago
touches him, so calmly possessive, it’s the only word Yondu can think of to
describe it. He stays as still as he can, and bears it. Ain’t no way out, and
there’s no point making this any worse.
So when Romago takes a grip of his chin and tilts his head back, gentle but
firm, to make a clinical exploration of where his implant sinks into his
forehead, Yondu lets him get on with it. He traces the wonky laceration he’d
accidentally cut into the ceiling when his yaka went haywire, the one Kraglin
still teases him about, and imagines cutting a similar slice through the Horde
captain’s chrome-patched skull. Chilly fingertips dance across his scalp,
disarmingly light. They stroke the ridge in the skin where plastic’s grafted to
bone, then return to it, rubbing just hard enough to make the numbed nerve
endings tingle. When he scratches a steel thumbnail over one of the carvings,
Yondu finds himself clutching his pant leg.
Damn it. Damn it.
If this had been anyone else, if this had been Kraglin…
Not thinking about that.
“Interesting,” Romago murmurs. His clever eyes swallow every one of Yondu’s
reactions, to the slightest repressed twitch. “I will not judge you for
enjoying this. There is no shame in feeling pleasure where bodies are designed
to find it.” He massages over the implant again, scraping his nails in tiny,
perfect circles. Yondu’s grip on his pant seam turns into a painful pinch. “I
am curious though – was your fin an erogenous zone also?”
He doesn’t want to be having this conversation with him. He doesn’t want to
have this conversation with anyone. But there’s more endangered here than his
pride, or his past, or whatever else it is that he’s trying to protect. Yondu
swallows and makes sure that his voice stays flippant when he answers.
“Dunno. Too young when I lost it, I guess.”
“A shame.” Those big, dark hands slide down, leaving cool prickles in their
wake, framing the base of the implant and slipping around to cup the front of
his neck. “This would’ve been preferable if you were whole.”
“Sorry for being damaged goods,” Yondu mutters. “Can send me back if y’ve got
your receipt.”
“And take the Terran boy instead?” His silence is all the answer needed. “I
thought not.” There’s a pull at his shoulder, guiding him further onto the bed.
Boots and all. Kraglin’ll be pissed tomorrow.
Yondu ends up kneeling awkwardly, stiff-shouldered and tense, while Romago
settles behind him and starts drawing his shirt up his belly. His body’s warm
where it’s flesh-and-blood, running hot like all Xandarians do, and frigid
towards the extremities. Yondu’s distracted by that for a moment – at least
until he realises that Romago’s crotch doesn’t register temperature-wise at
all.
His breathing picks up a little. So does, Romago’s, if for different reasons.
“So it’s true,” he says, air tickling Yondu’s neck. Yondu looks down. Romago’s
hands are splayed over his stomach; his thumbs dig into the edge of his pouch
while his fingers trace the seam. “How… exotic.”
Eugh. He shoulda fucking known.
Romago noses at his collarbone, adding the briefest nip – which reminds him far
too much of Kraglin, and Yondu can only hope that the Horde captain doesn’t
notice the hickeys on his chest, or at least is too distracted by the prospect
of fucking him to care. Right now, at least, he seems fixated on the pouch.
“Have you ever used it?”
Yondu shoots him a chilly look over one shoulder. “I look like a family man?”
“The presence of your Terran pet suggests so.” Yondu wonders if he should
bristle at that – it’s a stupid insinuation, after all; Peter ain’t family,
he’s crew, or possibly even cargo. But he decides it’s best to conserve his
energy.
“I don’t got kids,” he says. Romago hums, the sound neither approving nor
disapproving. He pushes Yondu’s shirt up further, bunching at his armpits.
Yondu supposes he should be thankful Romago doesn’t want to look at his face.
Ignoring the man’s easier when he can look straight ahead, count the stacks of
potential job schematics that’ve been saved onto holopads and piled haphazardly
on his desk. What’s it Peter always used to say helped him sleep? Counting
ships? Perhaps, if he concentrates really hard, he can just pretend none of
this is happening. Might even walk away with a sorted scheme for breaking into
that skrull base he’s had his eye on…
Then Romago shoves his hand into his pouch.
Yondu would’ve jumped a metre off the bed if he hadn’t been trapped in a
circlet of solid metal arms. As it is, he has to make do with lurching forwards
and making a noise like a gummed up M-engine. “Woah – woah! What the hell!”
He tries to grapple him, but Romago’s other hand gathers his wrists and pins
them together in front of his chest. When he attempts to shuffle forwards, to
work his body out from around the hand rather than the other way around,
Romago’s fingers curl inside him, and nails scratch the thin membrane that sits
between pouch wall and innards. Yondu bows off the bed in pain.
“Ow – ow, quit that, would you? Kinda tender in there!”
“Stay still then,” comes the mild order. Romago doesn’t sound especially
bothered by Yondu’s failed bid for freedom. He doesn’t sound especially
bothered about anything; not the evident pain in his voice, not the way Yondu’s
twitching uncomfortably as he tries to clamp down on the urge to bolt, to bite,
to get that strange – wrong, unnatural – feeling of something in his pouch that
ain’t his out.
“Stop this,” he says hoarsely, after almost a full minute’s passed. He can feel
Romago’s digits twitching, stretching, squeezing the muscle of his belly from
the inside. “Stop. Look, you wanna fuck me, fuck me, but…”
“Don’t toy with you?” Romago suggests. He curls his hand into a fist and raises
it, watching the pouch distend with unbridled interest. Yondu, feeling sick,
looks away. “I’m afraid this isn’t about what you want.”
“I get that. I geddit. But… but…” He should press his ass back against him, try
to heat him up a bit – if what he’s packing is able to heat. Anything to speed
this up. But Yondu’s head’s gone fuzzy; he’s breathing too quick and too
shallow, and all he can think about is getting as far away from those hands as
he can.
“This really isn’t comfortable for you, is it?” Romago purrs.
Yondu shakes his head, a bit too desperate. He receives a teasing lick to his
implant, which makes conflicting senses swarm nauseatingly through him, and
shies away when Romago comes down to nibble at the gold stud in his earlobe.
“Okay,” whispers the Horde captain. He catches the stud between his teeth,
pulling a little anyway just because he can. Then releases – and lets go of
Yondu’s wrists too, sliding his hand out from his pouch in the same motion. The
sudden lack of support sends him flopping face-first onto the bed. But he’s up
immediately and scrambling away, putting his back to the headboard. His boots
ruckle the sheets, dragging half of them after him.
Great. Now there’s space grime on the pillowcases. Peter can give them a luxury
goddam hand-wash after this, seeing as technically, this is all his fault.
Romago, meanwhile, is studying his palm with interest. It’s not wet or anything
weird like that; the membrane between a Centaurian male’s stomach and their
pouch is only permeable when there’s an actual brat in there, and that’ll
harden up once they’re old enough to take food orally.
That’s… about the extent Yondu knows about how it all works. All he remembers,
anyway. But his mind’s not really on anatomy pop quizzes at the moment, because
Romago’s lifted his hand to his face, and gives it a deep sniff before sticking
a finger in his mouth. Yondu nose shrivels with disgust.
“Seriously. What’s wrong with you?”
Creep he might be, but thankfully Romago isn’t the type to be offended easily.
“I am simply a man of interests,” he says. The spittle has smeared across his
fingers, making them shinier than ever. “Come here.”
Yondu eyes them warily. “You’re gonna need more than that, buddy.”
“I said come here.”
“Aw, gimme a fucking minute.” He’s feeling weird. Shaky. Like someone’s
stitched electrodes under his skin.
Romago, however, is not looking to bargain. “Here,” he says again. This time,
when Yondu doesn’t comply, he crosses the distance between him – Yondu would’ve
laughed, any other time; big scary captain of the Horde bouncing sternly over a
mattress on his knees – grabs Yondu’s boot, and yanks him forwards.
Yondu, of course, kicks him in the teeth.
Romago goes sprawling. Feeling slightly dazed, Yondu pushes up onto his elbows
and considers the door. But before he process the thought – or the jeopardy
it’ll put ‘em all in, Peter, Kraglin, Isla and the rest – there’s a bloody,
metal-eyed face looming up like a monster from the cosmic deeps, and a fist
swinging towards his jaw.
It turns out, getting punched by a guy who’s fifty percent titanium is about as
much fun as running face first into a tank.
At seventy miles per hour.
Yondu feels his cheek split. His head snaps back on his neck, body following
too slowly to avoid the agonizing crik. When he crashes down on the mattress,
it’s almost a relief. Except that Romago’s there, not giving him a moment to
recover, and the look in his eyes is pure fury, and he punches Yondu again,
this time in the temple, and again, so that pain and light splinter across his
vision.
Looks like it’s gonna be rough after all, thinks Yondu.
He’s flipped on his front, his grappling hands evaded. It should be a grim
thought, that he’s about to get fucked bloody. But it’s somehow reassuring.
This is about violence. Violence and anger, and pain. Yondu can deal with that.
This is nothing, he tells himself.
Nothing.
Even as fingers fasten to the seat of his pants and rip. The material gives,
loud even against an audial tapestry of panting breaths and creaking mechanical
joints.
“Forget oilin’ me up,” Yondu half-lasps, half-gasps, as his hips are dragged
into the air. They were good trousers too – hadn’t needed to be patched once.
He guesses that’s over now. A hand centres on the back of his skull, pressing
down with inescapable force and mashing his bleeding face into the sheets. He
has to push the next words through fabric, but it’s worth it. “You –mmf – sound
like you’ve got – mmf – cyborg-fuckin’-arthritis.”
“Silence,” rumbles Romago. He twists one of Yondu’s arms up behind his back, as
far as it should go, then a bit further. When Yondu sniggers through the pain,
he releases his head to grab his own belt from the pile of clothing they’d
accrued and bring it down smartly, buckle-end first, over his spine.
“I show you respect,” he seethes, punctuating every word with a sharp lash.
Yondu stops laughing after the third time the buckle gouges into him, and
decides he might as well make use of the sheets by stuffing his mouth with them
so he don’t end up whimpering or nothing. Because ow. “I show you and your men
mercy. I decide to give you to the Kyln rather than feeding your butchered
corpses to my crew… I even leave your Terran! At your behest! And you repay me
with this?”
The blows pause. Yondu waits until he’s certain it’s not just a reprieve. Then
cracks his eyes open and spits out his mouthful.
“I dunno who taught you what respect is,” he says, scathing as he can manage.
“But it sure as heck don’t look like this.”
Romago’s normal eye is a chit of volcanic glass, sharp and hard and deadly. He
gives his arm a last brutal twist before releasing him and moving away. Yondu
doesn’t watch as he sheds his underwear. At least, he doesn’t want to. He tries
to lie still and comfortable, to catch his breath while he can – but there’s
conflicting voices jabbering in his head.
Go on. Take a look. It’s going in whether ya want it or not; might well know
what it looks like.
But… what if it’s got spikes or something? He’s a fucking modder; who knows
what freaky junk he’s packing?
Would you rather know now, or when it’s being rammed up yer ass?
He supposes that’s a point. If he’s expecting ridiculous agony instead of just,
y’know, regular agony, maybe he’ll be able to… meditate, or something. Yondu
laughs again without really meaning to.
Yeah. Fat lot of good that’ll do.
“What about this situation is so amusing?”
There’s a rustle of fabric hitting the floor. A groan of springs. Then an icy
palm settles on the small of Yondu’s back. It’s directly over one of the gashes
from the belt, but Yondu just bites his cheeks and curls his forehead into the
sheets – they smell of Kraglin, of sweat and leather and gun-grease, and it’s
embarrassing how grateful he is even for that lifeline. Romago sweeps the pads
of his fingers through the bloody, bruised mess, spreading the skin on either
side of the wound. Yondu manages to hold his peace – until the damn bastard
licks it.
His tongue rasps like sandpaper. Yondu’s not fast enough to stifle his whine in
the sheets. And of course Romago hears it; of course he cocks his head like a
fucking dog and makes his fucking freaky-ass smile again; of course he does.
“Did you like that?” he asks, faux-innocent. Yondu forces a cackle.
“Loved it.” Next time Romago does it, he only wrings out a gasp. Yondu squeezes
his eyes until they sting. He can do this. Sadistic fucker’s just looking to
make him squirm – all he’s gotta do is not play the game…
“You really do have quite the mouth on you, don’t you,” says the freak. Yondu’s
back stiffens under his ministrations like the ligaments of a day-old corpse.
If he’s considering what Yondu thinks he’s considering… “I think I’ll fuck that
first,” Romago decrees. “It’ll keep you quiet for a while. And stop you
whistling for even longer.” His fingers come down, worm under Yondu’s head to
run along the line of his lips as he tries to turn away. His breath mottles
clouds of condensation over the metal, and when he tries to nip them all he
gets is aching gums. “Oh, and I don’t recommend biting. If you value your
remaining teeth.”
Great. Absolutely fucking perfect. He’s going to get face-fucked by a giant
metal dick.
Yondu coughs out a snicker, one that’s only slightly hysterical. And he was
bitching about sucking Kraglin off and swallowing last time, too…
“Well?” asks Romago, rubbing slick fingers over his tongue. “Any final words?”
“Fugk yow,” Yondu mumbles. His teeth click off polished steel. He tastes oil.
“Asshawl.”
“I’ll get to that,” says Romago. “Now. I’m going to let you up. And you’re
going to kneel.”
“Awm I,” is his flat reply. Romago’s fingers jab painfully towards the back of
his throat.
“Yes. Because if you don’t, I shall fetch the Terran. I will make him watch as
I fuck you. And then I’ll make you watch as I fuck him.” Yondu doesn’t let
himself tense. But he grimaces against the sheets, forgetting that Romago’ll be
able to feel it. No. He ain’t gonna let that happen – not to the boy. Not to
Peter. “More sentiment,” sighs Romago, shaking his head. His fingers prise and
press at Yondu’s cheeks from the inside. “Perhaps it would be more interesting
if I had you fuck him instead?”
Aw fuck. There’s just… there’s so much wrong with that.
Yondu chokes, yanking his head back to spit out Romago’s soaked digits. “No!”
He coughs, leaking drool onto the sheets, wiping it messily over his mouth.
“No. Not that. C’mon, I’ll do what you want. Just… just quit messing with me,
and you can do whatever the fuck you want. Jus’ leave the kid outta it.”
It’s a somewhat jumbled proposition, but he thinks he gets the gist across. It
still comes as a surprise when Romago's weight is removed from his back, and
he’s kicked to crash unceremoniously onto the floor.
“Kneel,” repeats the freak. Yondu, arms shaking, pushes himself to obey.
His pants are still intact from the knee downwards. It’s fucking weird – when
he sit back he can feel the soft leather and the edge of his boot heel digging
into his bare ass. Still. Whatever floats Romago’s boat. He don’t wanna know
whether Centaurians have the usual six toes? Yondu ain’t looking to pique his
curiosity. Only thing is, he’s now unavoidably, inescapably, face-to-fucking-
face with Romago’s dick. Or face-to-shaft. Head. Whatever.
And… well, ‘formidable’ ain’t quite the word.
Disturbing?
Monstrous?
Don’t get him wrong. Yondu’s had his fun – a wild sexual awakening’s pretty
much a given when you run with the Ravagers. He’s taken and given alike to a
varied array of genitalia, from Ashka’aan to Zen Whoberi. But this… this is a
reminder of why he’s always steered clear of the modders.
It’s… well, it’s big; enough said. Whether it was like that originally, Yondu’s
got no way to tell. For now, all that matters is that it’s thick, long, shaped
like the classic binary-sexed-penetrative-party model, sans foreskin, and
ribbed. A bunch of rubbery rings cluster with increasing density from tip to
base.
Could be worse, right?
Could be… a drill. Spiked like a Nova peacekeeping ship.
Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.
Yondu’s mouth’s gone dry all of the sudden. Real helpful. He sucks on his
cheeks, trying to coax out saliva – fuck, this is gonna be hard enough already
– as Romago cups the back of his skull and draws him in. Up close, his crotch
smells like his fingers taste. Metal and oil. Yondu futilely licks his lips.
“So uh, how’s it even stay up like that?”
Romago keeps pulling forwards. Yondu’s efforts to stiffen his neck and strain
away are thwarted without any seeming expenditure of effort. Fucking cyborg.
Eventually, Yondu’s in far closer proximity with a modded cock than he’s any
had any real desire to be – seriously, he’s practically going cross-eyes here –
and Romago’s thumbs are tugging at his lips in a way that’s as distracting as
it’s demeaning. “I mean, I’m guessing you don’t have blood down here?”
“I told you,” says Romago, gripping his chin hard enough to bruise. “There’s no
point in biting. Even if arteries ran through my groin, the metal epidermis is
too hard for you to breach.”
“Too hard. Uh-huh.” Hard being the operative word, by lieu of being, y’know,
cast in a forge. It feels kinda redundant to make an innuendo about a dick
though. The dick he’s currently eskimo-kissing. Which has a date with him at
both ends.
The fucking massive metal dick.
Stop stallin’, Yondu tells himself, giving his mental self a shake. Yeah, it’s
gonna hurt. S’gonna hurt like a bitch, but ignoring it sure as hell ain’t gonna
make it go away.
“I’m getting impatient,” says Romago on cue, still in that detached, apathetic
tone. Impatient means bad things. Impatient means hands in his pouch and pain
and Peter…
Ain’t much room in his head for deliberation after that. Yondu takes a deep
breath, opens his mouth, and takes Romago down to the root.
Okay.
So perhaps that was a bit ambitious. He gets about halfway there before he
chokes. Ain’t like he’s never done this before, but (no offence to Kraglin)
it’s usually on a smaller model. And there ain’t no weird ridges sitting heavy
on the top of his windpipe, and it don’t taste of chrome and fucking engine-
lubricant, and he actually wants to do this, no matter how much he bitches
about it, as opposed to being forced unerringly forwards by the hand wrapped
around the back of his head. Romago scratches his crown, rewardingly, like he’s
a fucking pet.
“Good,” he says. Eases Yondu down another centimetre, ignoring the sounds of
gagging – and fuck, fuck, he’s gonna throw up, and there ain’t none of them who
want that. Thankfully, the panicked scrabble of blue fingers over the welded
metal of his thighs gets Romago’s attention. “Too much? A shame.” He slides
Yondu back though, until just the head’s caught between his stretched, aching
lips.
No whistlin’ for a while, he said. Yondu gulps down ragged breath after ragged
breath. Fucker was right about that. His throat contracts painfully under
Romago’s soothing hands.
It’s not much of a rest though. Yondu gets approximately ten seconds before his
mouth’s full again, this time with Romago holding his head stationary and
pushing his hips forwards. He goes deep, almost to the point that had Yondu
retching. Then – to Yondu’s eternal relief – works a hand down between them to
rub his uncovered inches, and jerks back and forth in relatively shallow
thrusts.
Okay. This is… okay. Sore, humiliating, infuriating… but okay.
Better than the alternative. Anything’s better than that.
Yondu lets his eyes drift shut. He relaxes his throat as much as he can, head
rolling on his shoulders and arms hanging limp by his sides as Romago fucks his
face. Breathing’s a luxury. Swallowing’s a luxury. Feeling like he’s not about
to spill his guts any second’s definitely a fucking luxury, but Yondu’s
somewhat reassured that Romago’d stopped before. Whatever kinks this creepy
fucker might have, he doesn’t think getting his crotch drenched in Centaurian-
puke is one of them.
“Not terrible, I suppose,” Romago commends, when Yondu manages to curl his
tongue and drag it over the ridged underside. Whoopee. Gold fucking star for
him. For a moment, Yondu entertains the hope that he can get Romago off like
this – but his ‘not terrible’ evidently isn’t especially spectacular either.
Romago knuckles his bruised cheek, not pausing in his gentle rocking but
encouraging him to look up at him.
“Finger yourself,” he says. Then, when Yondu makes to burble out a denial –
“It’s the only preparation you’re getting, so you’d best make it worth
something.”
Aw heck.
It ain’t the best angle, that’s for sure. But Yondu’s not gonna reject the
offer. He reaches behind and arches his back, tucking his fingers into the
cleft of his ass. Then remembers they’re completely dry. Attempting to pull off
only earns him a harder, throat-busting thrust – Yondu tastes blood, and is hit
with the sudden concern that a cock made of metal could probably bludgeon right
through any resistance it found, grievous internal injuries be damned – so he
waves to get Romago’s attention.
Hi? Yeah, down here, the guy suckin’ you off. Remember me?
Romago’s smart enough to understand his problem. He sighs extravagantly, like
he’s doing Yondu a massive favour for not just turning him over and screwing
him raw there and then. …Which, thinking about it, he kinda is. He extracts
himself, fast enough that one of Yondu’s capped canines scratches his cock’s
shiny surface – he tastes sparks – and turns to appraise the messy room.
“These are your quarters. I’m assuming you keep lubrication somewhere?” He
assumes rightly.
“First wall drawer,” Yondu rasps. “On th’left.”
Words hurt. Xandarian already scratches his throat like a virus. Last thing he
needs is being made any hoarser than he is already. But it ain’t like Romago’ll
understand him if he starts clicking – heck, who knows what he’d do then?
Probably dissect him to get a good look at his vocal cords. Freak.
Romago gracefully lopes to where Yondu has indicated. The synthetic fibre
muscles that join metal legs to skin torso, shift in perfect harmony. The
drawer ain’t coded – Yondu’s got other places, less obvious places, for storing
his valuables. It slides out of the wall as soon as Romago prods the pressure
pad. He plucks out the bottle – damn, why didn’t Yondu keep any of the numbing
stuff? When he returns, he drops it between Yondu’s knees.
“Go on then. Wet yourself up.” Somebody’s not a romantic.
“Mind if I jerk off a bit too?” Because heaven knows, he might as well get
something out of this.
Romago shrugs. “Be my guest.” How generous of him.
Yondu squeezes out a hearty dollup and rubs it until he’s got one coated set of
fingers and a pleasantly slippery palm. Romago is watching, although the look
on his face is more scientific curiosity than lust. Freak. Yondu ignores him,
rubbing over the tight furl of his asshole. It’s tempting to draw this out,
take his time – heaven knows he’s not going to be having nearly as much fun
when Romago gets down to business. But he also doesn’t know how long the Horde
captain’s patience is going to last.
The thought of that cock coming anywhere near him before he’s loose enough to
fucking fist, is enough motivation to speed things up a bit.
Yondu goes in with two fingers – quick but efficient. He’s no newbie at this;
he has fuck-days and be-fucked days, and an eager little first mate who’ll get
him off in any way Yondu demands. Even in some ways he ain’t heard of. So he’s
up to three-and-a-bit fingers fairly quickly, massaging and scissoring at his
inner walls, willing ‘em to relax more than anything. Takes a bit longer to get
his cock up – but it does, nowadays (shut up). Anyway, ain’t like he’s got the
bedmate of his dreams. Still, up he gets.
That, Romago does look at with interest. “Blue blood. Like a Kree.” Yondu
doesn’t bother to ask if he’s fucked some of them too – man’s a bloody sex
tourist; if Centaurians and Terrans are the only members of Yondu’s crew he’d
picked out as worthy of attention, he must’ve worked his way round half the
fucking galaxy.
With that in mind, Yondu sure hopes cyborgs can’t catch STIs.
“Nah. Mine’s lighter.” He circles his thumb round the head of his dick,
shamelessly presenting it to Romago’s like he’s at show-and-tell. “See? Theirs
go black. Kinda freaky. Y’know, first time I fucked a Kree gal, I thought she’d
got gangrene or something?”
Romago’s lip curls back. “You may have an advanced mind for a savage, but it is
truly filthy.”
“What? It were an honest mistake!” Yondu jerks his hips forwards; bites his lip
and channels air through his nose as he circles his prostate. It’s kinda hard
to reach from this angle, but he does his best. “And hey, uh, talking of
necrosified bits…” There’s that grimace again. Delightful, just delightful.
“You take any venereal vaccs recently? Like, uh, not to be intrusive or
nothing, but if we’re goin’ in bareback…”
Romago cuts him off. “Even if I was contaminated, you wouldn’t stop me.”
“Maybe not, maybe not.” Yondu flexes his thighs, sinking back on his fingers
until his wrist twinges. “But at least I’d know to get a check-up after.”
“True.” Romago fists his cock in time to the wet squelch of Yondu’s hand where
it pumps against his ass. It’s still hard, Yondu notices. Very hard. Mostly by
dint of being forged from fucking vibranium, or something of that ilk.
Also very big.
He’s been hoping that after a bit of time to become acquainted, it wouldn’t
seem as… daunting. He’s been wrong. “You shall be pleased to hear that I am
clean.” As pleased as one could be, in this situation. “I am also done waiting.
Are you ready?”
Yondu considers saying no, just to see what he’ll do. Then decides it’s
probably best not to find out.
He tugs his fingers free – they leave with a slurp, obscenely loud in the
silence – and winces as cool air meets tender skin. A glob of lube rolls out
when he climbs up and walks to the bed, smearing between his cheeks. It’s warm
and sticky. Yondu feels as loose as he’s gonna get. And hey, there’s no time
like the present, right?
Taking a deep breath, he crawls forwards on hands and knees, and presents the
captain with his ass. “All yours,” he says. Cool fingertips linger over flesh.
They’re not quite touching, but hover near enough to steal his heat.
“Indeed,” Romago murmurs.
Yondu hears him creak close, feels the brush of breath across the raised welts
that stud his spine. Romago pulls up and positions himself. His cockhead feels
like the tip of a battering ram. He’s barely pressing forwards and it’s already
tugging at his rim.
Shit, shit, shit shit shit.
Just relax, Yondu imagines Kraglin telling him, as he shoves a pillow under his
hips – fuck, he doubts he’ll be holding himself up for long – and finds another
one to bite. Just breathe, nice and slow. Yeah, that’s it.
He’s doing fine.
This is all gonna be fine.
They’re gonna walk out of this room – well, one of them is; Yondu suspects he’s
not gonna be doing much walking for a few days. (Or standing, for that matter.
Or sitting.) Kraglin’s gonna be waiting with a grin and an EMP. They’re gonna
blast every last one of these Hordesmen fuckers to hell. Then they’ll pick up
the boys stranded planetside, accelerate into hyperspace before the Horde
armada realises their captain’s kicked the can, and be back with the fleet
before breakfast.
Heck, he can think up some suitably inventive punishment for Quill along the
way. Not just scrubbing the bogs, neither. Oh no. Boy deserves something big
after this stunt, something special… Maybe he’ll use him as bait for the next
job. Maybe he’ll partner him with Horuz. So many possibilities…
And Yondu doesn’t get a second more to consider them all. Because the next
moment, metal hands encase his hips and that’s all the warning he gets before
Romago batters in.
It all goes to hell.
Breathing pattern.
Mantras of insults he’ll be yelling at Quill once they’re through.
All fracture and fragments into one thing: an all-consuming, devastating
actuality of pain.
Yondu’s not ready for this. Not by a long shot. He’d barely had half a minute
to get up to three fingers, and now his asshole’s clenching desperately as it
attempts to stop the relentless slide of dick.
And relentless it is. Romago squeezes the lube tube, rubbing pearly slick along
the length of his cock until everything’s all nice and shiny, then squirts it
over Yondu and works it into him in short, powerful thrusts. Each rubber
circlet stretches him a millimetre wider. Romago breaches the inner ring with a
pop that replaces Yondu’s limbs with bags of jelly, and after that there’s no
hesitation, no pauses for air. One firm thrust and he’s in, all the way in,
deeper than Yondu’s taken pretty much anything.
Fuck.
It hurts.
From his pelvis to his stomach, to his jaw from clenching his teeth so tight.
Yondu belatedly realises that he’s ripped a hole in Kraglin’s favourite pillow.
Double fuck.
However, the ginormous cock splitting him in half takes priority over his
mental faculties at that moment. He’ll have to apologise later. Treat him to
dinner… Somewhere nice.
And damn it all, damn it, he’s not gonna start crying because he started
thinking about taking Kraglin on a date while being fucked by an insane Horde
captain. Oh fuck no. It’s not happening. What’s it he kept telling Peter, back
when the brat was still keeping them up half the night cycle with his wails?
Ravagers don’t cry.
Yondu scrunches up his face until he’s one hundred percent positive not a
single tear’s gonna make a bid for freedom. Then sputters out a spitty gasp as
his ass ripples around the final five, tight-packed ridges, and the chilly base
of the cock settles home.
It’s done. It’s all in – he can’t quite believe it, but it is.
He’s almost glad for the coldness of the metal. S’weird and uncomfortable, but
it least it numbs him somewhat. From ‘blazing agony’ to ‘stippling sting’; but
better than nothing, right?
“Now this,” grunts Romago, one hand pinning his lower half, the other a frigid
collar on the back of Yondu’s neck, “this is much better. I could do this all
day.” He pulls out – oh fuck that cains – and thrusts back in, smooth and gut-
piercingly deep, to emphasise. Yondu bounces his forehead off the mattress. He
can feel sweat gathering under Romago’s palm, sliding along his collarbone.
“I – I’d really, uh, rather you didn’t.” His voice is not shaking. It is not.
The hand on his neck creeps up to fondle his implant, as if Romago’s making an
attempt at soothing, at comfort. The touch doesn’t feel good any more though.
Just a lesser ache, marooned in a sea of much greater ones. It’s as if Yondu’s
been oversensitized, electrified, his body transformed into a bundle of raw
nerves.
The cock in his ass is heavy, foreign. An intruding, impaling presence that he
can’t escape. The ribbing rubs him over like it’s trying to weather him away.
He feels ridiculously full, liable to burst at the seams, and the taste of
stomach acid is rising up the back of his throat again. He swallows it, throat
clicking, and it burns all the way down too.
“You’re doing very well,” Romago croons. “There’s not many who can take me, not
even like this.”
Yondu sniffs into his pillow, fingers curling around the casing’s loose
corners. “I live to fucking please,” he grunts.
“And you do. Immensely.” The hands squeeze his biceps and trace down his sides.
They’re even kind enough to avoid the worst of the gashes. They settle on his
ass, pulling apart the cheeks so that Romago can admire his ridiculous cock –
and he must be compensating for something, although Yondu’s not sure what – as
it slides in and out of its new blue sheathe. “I truly never believed I would
have opportunity to bed a Centaurian.”
“Yeah, I bet you’ll tell – ah – your g-grandkids about this day.”
How long does it take a man with metal balls to get off? Please, please, let
him be an early finisher. Yondu won’t even mock him for it, if he’ll only take
it out.
“Hm. I’d settle for our combined crews.” His thrusts pick up pace. Yondu bites
his tongue until his lips leak blue as he’s slammed forwards. His stomach
clenches again, and this time Yondu doesn’t swallow until the taste fills his
mouth, sour and acidic.
The fuck he will.
Yondu’s gonna destroy him. Decimate him. Decapitate him (and yes, he does mean
both heads).
The headboard clatters of the wall. Rhythmical and hard. Bang, bang, bang.
Walls of the captain’s cabin are pretty thick, but Yondu knows anyone unlucky
enough to be walking by will leave with no illusions about what’s going on.
He’s just glad he’d had the sense to confine crew to quarters until this mess
was sorted out. Once the Hordesmen are dead, that just leaves the High Command
to threaten into silence – and those of them who he don’t trust (those of them
who he trusts less than the others, he supposes he should say) can always be
blackmailed or bribed.
One thing’s for sure. This don’t get out. Anyone asks, he got in a fight. A
darn amazing fight. With a bilgesnipe. Tusks and all.
Bang, bang, bang.
Yondu’s driven forwards over his pillow; Romago pauses only momentarily to hike
him back into a fuckable position, gripping his waist to keep him steady,
before he resumes his fierce pace. He ploughs into Yondu like he’s one of ‘em
lifesize customisable sexbots they sell at the kinkier shops on Knowhere. Who
knows? Freak probably has a couple. Named after near-extinct species too, no
doubt. Although his Centaurian’d have a fin.
Yondu tries to distract himself, tries to take his mind far away. Other people.
Other places. But it doesn’t work. There’s simply too much. Too much presence.
Too much cock. Not enough air.
His lungs are burning and his nose is clogged, but every time he opens his
mouth to take a breath he makes this awful, whining noise, like a dying animal.
It seems to excite Romago – of course it does. His abdomen tenses, and he
delivers a series of stingingly fast thrusts, each one feeling like it’s
punching its imprint into Yondu’s entrails.
He lets go of his waist – Yondu immediately collapses flat, but Romago just
moves over him to compensate, pounding down like he’s mining for fucking oil.
Five strong fingers wrap around his neck, slowly compressing his airways until
his throat feels like it’s rubbing itself. Then Yondu finds out what it’s
really like not to breathe.
In the end, the only thought that worms through the mess of agony is giddy
gratitude that Peter’s not the one lying here.
He doesn’t know how long it is before Romago’s thrusts lose their strict tempo.
He’s practically delirious by then anyway, brain swimming from lack of oxygen,
vision wavering in and out. He can’t tell if he’s losing consciousness or if
his eyes just keep rolling back into his head. But he feels it when the rhythm
judders. He hears it when Romago starts to make his own noises; high-pitched
feral growls and animal-grunts.
He definitely feels it when Romago spills. It’s an orgasm that goes on and on,
seemingly for hours. When Yondu’s overflowing, he pulls out and spurts the last
of it over his blistered back, painting stinging murals in white and blue.
“Oh,” he breathes, voice throaty and blissful. “Oh, yes.”
Oh yes, Yondu thinks. It’s over.
He feels like he’s been steamrolled. It’s so tempting to lay here, to edge a
corner of the sheet over him and bury his face in Kraglin’s pillow and wait
until the world stops spinning before dragging himself up to face it. Romago
stays collapsed on top of him, his strange, underweight ribcage grating his
flayed back. Yondu can’t even be bothered to wince. There’s no cock inside him.
He’s done. It’s finished.
Oh, he can still feel it alright. Kinda hard to miss. It’s sticky and strange,
resting between his buttocks. Romago’s a boneless weight over him, his metal
arms and legs shackling him like frost-heavy chains. Yondu’s just thankful that
his cock’s warmed up a bit – although that’s just from friction, and Yondu’s
own body heat. The ridges slip over his stretched entrance when Romago shifts,
and Yondu shudders like he’s caught a fever. It’s firmer than any flaccid flesh
Yondu’s come across, but – he hopes – not stiff enough for another round. So
long as it stays that way, Yondu figures he can deal with the reminder a while
longer.
“You done?” he croaks, once he deems the Xandarian’s had enough to time to
recover, but not a full refractory period. Heaven knows, he don’t want to tempt
fate. Romago’s fingers curl against his nape.
“For now,” he pants, into the skin.
His other hand slithers down, cool and wet, drenched with Yondu’s sweat and
residual lubricant, and delves between them to slot three digits into his loose
body. Yondu squirms, curses under his breath and tries to wriggle away. But
Romago shushes him, like a fucking kid. He squelches his fingers deep into the
froth of blood and lube and come he’s left behind. The movements are slow and
leisurely, almost like Romago’s trying to get him off – as if that’d make up
for this, for anything. Yondu just shudders and clicks to himself. Then regrets
it as the scratching foreign tongue encourages Romago to probe him deeper, to
rub his thumb back and forth over the tight, sensitive skin behind Yondu’s
balls and curl his fingers on the upstroke.
“Stop,” he gasps, in Xandarian this time, when Romago circles his prostate.
“Stop, hurts too much.”
Romago looks surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah, t-tends to happen when you’ve been fucked by a comically humungous
cock.” There’s another firm press, as if Romago’s testing him to see for
himself. Yondu clicks again, unhappily, and tries to kick him away. His boot
heel bounces off a metal thigh. “M’serious.”
Romago’s lips thin in his peripherals. But he removes the fingers. “Very well.”
When they’re presented before his face, Yondu has to shut his eyes to quell the
nausea.
“Hell no,” he says. And means it. “I will fucking barf.”
They get wiped on his shoulder instead. Somewhat vindictively – so Yondu
assumes – Romago sweeps them right over one of the scoured lines that he carved
with his belt buckle. He doesn’t retreat any further though, or make any move
to retrieve his folded pile of clothing. Instead, he heaves Yondu onto his
side, snuggles up tight behind him, and rests one weighty arm over his side.
Yondu swallows bile.
“You leaving, or what?” He’s had what came for. All Yondu wants is to curl up
and ache in peace.
“Is it customary for a Centaurian to abandon their bedfellow right after the
act?”
If that’ll get him away… “Yes.” And then, just because it’s true – “Although
you ain’t Centaurian, so I don’t see how it matters.” The arm tossed over him
squeezes in, just a little. Enough to remind Yondu of its crushing potential.
“True,” says Romago, voice bland. “I am merely Xanderian. The fifth most
prevalent species in the galaxy. Second in the Nova empire. Mundane. Common.”
Yondu shoots him a look, somewhere between pained and sceptical. “Fuck, you’ve
got issues.”
“And you were even more entertaining than I had hoped.” His index skims the
edge of Yondu’s pouch. “Perhaps I shan’t give you to the Nova. I think I would
rather keep you – yes. You and the Terran both.” Another fucking collector.
Just what this Galaxy don’t need. Heck, Yondu’ll be doing the universe a favour
if he kills him.
When he kills him.
Which he will. As soon as he no longer feels like he’s made of lead and
bruises, or else his arrow’s back online.
“You said you’d fuck me instead of the Terran,” he tries to haggle, but shuts
up when the tip of the finger wriggles warningly under the flap of tough blue
skin. It doesn’t retreat, a cool sliver of ice that constantly teases
violation.
“Oh, I wouldn’t necessarily fuck him,” says Romago breezily, stroking up and
down the long slit. “I doubt he’d last long if I did.” Well… he ain’t wrong
there. Yondu’s still mildly disturbed that he survived without rupturing
anything serious.
It don’t matter what the bastard says though, right? He ain’t leaving this
ship. He can talk all the smack about him and Peter that he wants.
“What’d you do with him, then?” he asks anyway, because Romago talking is
Romago distracted – at least partially – from playing with his body. “I’ve
dealt with the brat a coupla years now, and he ain’t gonna be no one’s pet
without a fight.”
Romago’s shrug is carefree. “Chain him up, I suppose. Build him a cage.
Terran’s do not require much in the way of sustenance, do they?”
“No more than most.”
“Well then.” He sounds inordinately pleased. “There you go. I shall keep him in
my office as I lead our united force across the galaxy.” A pause. “And you in
my bed, of course.” Yondu rolls his eyes.
“What an honour.” Freak.
“Yes. Well…” And the hand starts to creep lower. “If you’re to take my cock on
a regular basis, I suppose you’ll be in need of more practice…”
And fuck no, oh fuck no.
Yondu’s boots drag helplessly over the sheets as Romago lifts one of his legs,
hooking him under the knee and tucking his thigh back so he can slot between
them.
Fuck no.
He can’t, he can’t deal with this, he can’t handle it again, no, no…
That’s when his crest crackles to life.
Yondu tries to whistle before his mind’s even processed what’s happening,
before the elation even hits – his arrow’s back, he can fight, he can feel
again. But his lips are cracked and broken and nothing comes out but a reedy
whistle of air.
“You’re being so good for me,” Romago tells him. Then trails off, as Yondu’s
crest flares in a desperate pulse.
Come on. Come on.
Romago realises what’s happening, as Yondu rasps his dry tongue over his lips
and mangles a short trill. There’s a burst of recognition, a sensation of
movement…Then a palm claps over his mouth, sour with the reek of metal-biotic
ejaculate.
Biting it’s useless, but Yondu manages to wrench his head away. He whistles
once – just once.
That’s all it takes.
Chapter End Notes
     For anyone wondering – in this series, the Centaurians were a planet-
     bound race with no Empire contact, living in the present day rather
     than the future. They were wiped out by the Badoon - with the
     exception of a couple of lucky folks who happened to have been
     abducted previously. There was no Vance Astro or human settlement
     involved.
     I’ve actually got a bit of a backstory planned out where Yondu
     managed to accidentally stow away on a Ravager smuggling vessel as a
     kid, when it hid on Centauri-IV to avoid Nova patrols. I’ll have to
     write it sometime. It’ll probably be the only damn T-rated thing I
     contribute to this fandom. Because I am utter filth (as this chapter
     unequivocally proves).
***** Meanwhile *****
Chapter Summary
     As the title suggests...
      
     TW: mentions of pedophilia
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Worst part of any plan ain’t the devilling out of the details, nor the
inevitable round-up of corpses after all’s been said, done, and shot. Worst
part of a plan’s the goddamn waiting.
Kraglin’s a schemer – stuck in a grind, he’ll keep churning out new ideas. It
don’t matter if half are naff and the other half depends on gravity
miraculously inverting at just the right moment; he’ll keep coming up with ‘em
until the problem goes away or the whole damn ship explodes. But more than
that: he’s a doer. He follows orders. He gives orders, when it’s necessary. He
does his job. He cracks spines and lifts merchandise and threatens and haggles
his way through the densest Hraxian markets; he snaps fingers and digs out
bullet slugs and sniffs out anyone who’s got a bad word to say against the
boss, then deals with ‘em so boss don’t have to.
Sitting around and waiting is more than just dull. It’s fucking antithetical to
his fucking being.
Or something like that.
But sometimes – and even Kraglin can’t deny it – waiting’s the only thing you
can do. Opportune moment. That’s what Yondu’s been drilling him to look for,
while Kraglin’d rather shoot first and observe later. And he’s fairly certain
that this scene, the Ravager High Command shuffling their feet in the corner
with their hands raised over their heads while Peter dangles in the arms of a
burly Horde lass, isn’t it.
“Fucking hell, brat,” he mutters under his breath. “You’d better get double-bog
duty for this.”
The last remaining EMP grenade is a clunky dumbbell, strapped over his left
hip. Kraglin strokes it unconsciously, picking at the wiring until he catches
himself. Then he yanks his hand away before he can trigger the damn thing and
make a shit situation that much shitter. Heck, Yondu’d never let him hear the
end of it if he did that. Speaking of… Where is the captain?
Kraglin elongates his neck; peeks through the stained yellow glass of the door
porthole and conducts a rapid scan.
Nope. No Yondu. And no captain of the Horde either.
Kraglin thunks his skull off the doorframe – lightly, he don’t want to be
giving himself away – and cusses to himself. Fucking great. Yondu has to derail
his own goddam plot by treating that Romago creep to a private tour? Smacking
his knee in lieu of being able to take his frustration out on anything louder,
Kraglin dismisses that thought. Nah. Captain wouldn’t have separated Romago
from his crew, not when he knew Kraglin was on his way with a trump-card. Not
unless he’d had no choice.
Which means it’s up to Kraglin now, to improvise.
Thinking about it, Romago’s absence doesn’t actually sabotage them too much –
they’ve still got the remaining fifteen Hordesmen soldiers in one place, all
within the easy reach of a single EMP nodule. Kraglin tosses the grenade and
picks ‘em off in the confusion, then they jump Romago before his modded brain
can process the words fuck, you and a-hole. All they gotta do is disable the
teleporter before they off him. Six on one. Seven, if the captain’s there. He
won’t stand a chance.
Kraglin’s grinning just thinking about it. Smarmy freak deserves everything
that’s coming to him.
It’s a shame really, that such a good plan’s got a wrench in its works. A
wrench that’s about four feet tall, dressed in a Ravager coat three sizes too
ambitious, and is, from the rabid snarl twisting up the Hordegirl’s face,
already talking himself into an early grave. Heck, Kraglin’s tempted to let him
get on with it. It’d make life a lot easier, that’s for sure.
But also, admittedly, a lot more boring.
Not that he’d miss the brat or anything. However, it’s not everyone who’s got
the guts to barter with Zqo and Morlug for their M-ship codes when he still
ain’t cleared to fly, or pack Horuz’s favourite gun with glitter confetti on a
semi-regular basis. Or speak back to Yondu. Kraglin’s not sure which of those
traits he values more. But one thing’s for sure – all are pretty much Peter-
specific. Lose him, and employment on the Eclector loses a good quarter of its
entertainment value (the other three being comprised equally of explosions,
high-speed space pursuits, and the captain).
And more importantly still – there’s eleven plasma rifles trained on his fellow
crewmen. If he rolls the grenade in there now, they won’t stand a fucking
prayer.
There’s not much he can do though. Not from out here. And it’s frustrating and
unsatisfying and it’s making his leg jiggle up and down in impatience like it’s
the head of one of those wobbly trinkets Yondu keeps propped on his dash. Even
if he sets a distraction, it ain’t like all of them will tramp off together to
see what it’s about. He’ll just separate the group and make his job harder.
Nope, Kraglin’s going to have to do this the long way.
Universe’s pretty damn mutable, right? Eventually, something’ll change. Whether
or not it’ll tip the odds in his favour, nobody can tell – but Kraglin’ll be on
the first opportunity he gets like a Kree warship on a Xandarian cruiser.
Scowling to himself, Kraglin steeples his fingers over his nose, counts the
groaning thrums of the ship’s engines, and waits.
***
“-And you smell funny!”
It is, perhaps, a tad hypocritical. When you’re part of a crew that rations
drinkables on deepspace trans-system flights and has to be ready to engage in
manic evasions and firefights at a moment’s notice, showering’s often the last
thing on folks’ minds. Nothing like being caught trespassing in a Nova-
patrolled quadrant and being called to battle stations in your birthday suit.
Peter feels the need to qualify. “Like… like Jthuo-breath.”
It’s a lie – the woman holding him actually smells oddly sweet under her
coating of sweat and grime, like she might have misted her corpulent body in
perfume at some point over the last year. But it’s the most offensive thing
Peter can think of.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t get a raise out of the guard, beyond an errant twitch
that ticks at the mobile side of her mouth. Peter scowls and kicks her tree-
trunk legs. “And you’re holding me too tight!” He tries for wheedling, in the
hopes that if she thinks his species is especially fragile she’ll loosen her
grip enough for him to bolt. Her blue-sclera’d eyes swivel down to touch on
his, just briefly.
“Has that only just occurred to you?” she rumbles. “You haven’t complained
until now.” Peter sags. Foiled.
Zqo and Morlug and the rest might help him, if they weren’t backed up against
the wall under the scope of the Hordesmen’s plasma guns (Peter purposefully
doesn’t include Horuz in the mental tally of Ravager friendlies. He doesn’t
want to tempt fate.) Although at the moment, they’re all glaring at him, for
some reason. That’s… odd. It’s not like them to be angry at him for disobeying
orders, and if they honestly thought he’d stay put in that cramped little
cupboard, they don’t know him at all.
Peter shrugs, and puts it out of his mind.
What about the other top Ravagers though? Kraglin… Kraglin would think up
something clever that’d get Peter out (after at least the third try). And
Yondu’d laugh and tell him to sort out his own messes. Then save his ass anyway
and claim Peter owed him for the next half-millennia.
Bastard.
But Yondu and Kraglin aren’t here now, so Peter’s gonna have to get out of this
one on his own.
He steels himself, wriggling his foot to locate the knife he’s got shoved
between his double-layer of socks. Present from Isla, after the last time
Shorro’d caught him stealing extra rations (not Peter’s fault; he’s a growing
boy). If he can just get to it, if he can distract the guard long enough… He
can break free. He can grab her gun and shoot the whole bloody lot of them,
like he’d meant to before, blam-blam-blam, like one of the heroes from the
action movies mom had let him watch sometimes when grandpa was out working and
she couldn’t get out of bed. There’s no Yondu around to snarl at him now. With
the absence of both him and the Hoard captain (wherever they’ve gone), Peter’s
confidence has burgeoned.
He can save them all. He can be a hero.
The thought is giddying. Perhaps after this, they’ll actually call him
Starlord!
The Guard peers at him, surprised to catch the flicker of a grin. “Something
funny?” she growls.
“Your face,” is Peter’s immediate reply. There’s no harm in it. Morlug’s just
as cut up and Thrabba’s got droop-eye and drool-lip after that electric pulse
bomb went off early on Gvarg and gave him a stroke. But apparently, for the
Horde girl, it’s still a bit of a sore point.
“Why you little-“ she snarls, her grip turning from firm to bruising. She
doesn’t look away from Peter, eerie blue eyes boring relentlessly into his own,
but she directs her voice out to the rest of her crew. “If captain don’t want
this one to play with, think we can get away with roughing him up instead?”
“Don’t see why not,” says the tall one, smirking as he makes another sweep of
the Ravagers with the muzzle of his rifle. “This lot sure as heck ain’t gonna
stop us.”
A quick study of the Ravagers’ faces proves him right. Peter tenses. They don’t
look like they’d lend a hand even if there weren’t a score of plasma bolts
ready to be unloaded into their guts at the first sign of protest. Zqo’s got a
rare smile on her face, and Horuz is nodding like he’d like some popcorn. And
Peter has no idea why.
He feels betrayed. Then abruptly, furious.
“What the hell did I ever do to you?” he yells. The question’s directed more at
the Ravagers than the Hordesmen, although the latter group doesn’t realise.
“Annoyed us,” spits the guard holding him.
“Why a Ravager crew’d even let a little pest like you tag along’s beyond me,”
another sneers. “Unless they’re fattening you up.” That’s a mite too close to
some of the threats Peter receives on a day-to-day basis. He kicks out again,
uselessly, and pounds his fists back into the woman’s blubbery belly. The force
of his impacts wobble away.
“You don’t know anything!” he screams. “You’re just mean! And you smell! And I
hate you!” They’re encircling him now, only two rifles left to menace the
Ravagers now they’ve decided they’re not going to be a threat. This is your
chance, Peter thinks, desperate. You’ve fooled them, congratulations, but now’s
your chance!
The Ravagers don’t move. Zqo’s smile grows a little wider.
The tall Hordesman is standing in front of him. Peter’s eyes are about on level
with his belly button – if he even has one of those. Slowly, like a lowering
drawbridge, his torso swings down so they’re of a height. He’s got sharp teeth,
Peter notices. Like Kraglin. But his grin is far more dangerous. “Oh, little
Terran,” he says. “Whatever shall we do with you?”
Then – to Peter’s horror – one skeletal hand fishes into his boot and draws out
the knife.
“Saw you lookin’ for this earlier,” he says in explanation, waggling it back
and forth across Peter’s field of vision.
Peter snaps and snarls; the guard holding him frowns. “He had that on him the
whole time?”
“Nearly ended up in your belly too, I’ll wager. It’s a big enough target.”
Tall, thin and toothy reaches past Peter’s head to mock-pat the broad gut.
“Fuck off,” the guard grumbles. Tall, thin and toothy laughs.
“Yeah, yeah.” His attention turns back to the Terran. “Hey kid, you’ve got
guts, I’ll give you that. But you can’t have honestly thought this would work.
Face it. Ain’t nothing you can do but wait for our captain to be finished with
yours…” There’s something about the way he says that, a strange gleeful glimmer
in his eyes that Peter doesn’t want to decipher. “-And pray we hand you over to
the Nova corps rather than selling you on to a slaver. Terrans are planetbound
species, y’know – protected from poaching by Intergalactic law.” The knife
blade scrapes gently over Peter’s chin. Tall, thin and toothy’s eyes are
slivered, as dark as his captor’s are blue. “You’ll fetch a good price. Given
that you’re probably trained already.”
The guard’s hands squeeze his biceps. “Y’think? Thought the boss was just
lookin’ to get a rise when he said…”
Tall, thin and toothy shrugs. “Can’t think of any other reason why he’s been
kept ‘round so long, can you? The untouched ones ain’t always worth more;
there’s plenty’a creeps out there who’ll cough up a sum for a practiced
young’un.”
Peter’s only practiced at scrubbing the floor grating and taking apart guns to
unclog the firing tubes. He can’t work out why that’d make him more valuable on
the slave market, unless unpaid child-labour is back in, but he bristles
anyway. “Might as well sell me on,” he says bravely. The knife’s nicking at his
lip, but he keeps speaking anyway. “They pretty much use me as a slave
already.”
Tall, thin and toothy sniggers, juddering the blade. “Oh, I’ll bet they do…”
Blood trickles over Peter’s mouth. He can taste it more than he can feel it,
coppery and rich. He grimaces when tall, thin and toothy brings the knife to
his face and licks the red residue away. His face settles in bliss, eyes
fluttering to a close. “Mm. And y’taste good too. Rare, juicy…” Peter tries to
work up enough saliva to spit at him, but can’t manage it. Tall, thin and
toothy appraises him scornfully a moment longer, then raises his voice to the
rest. “We’ll still be able to sell ‘im if the important tackle’s intact – so,
anyone want a slice?”
The knife hovering besides Peter’s cheek suddenly becomes a lot more
intimidating. Peter frantically shies away, but is trapped by the Hordesgirl’s
big blue arms.
Crap. Crap. He really is gonna get eaten…
The last two guards exchange glances with each other, and the Ravager captives.
Tempted by the offer, they sidle a little closer. That’s when the door slides
open with an unobtrusive snick, and a sphere the size of Peter’s head bounces
in.
“Thanks for distractin’ em, boy!” Kraglin calls from the doorway.
Tall, thin and toothy gapes at the ball. His eyes raise slowly to the
Hordesgirl holding Peter captive.
“Shit,” he says.
And everything turns to hell.
***
“Where’s captain?” Kraglin asks Isla at one point, as they’re finishing off the
obese blue guard. She just shakes her head.
***
Kraglin asks again when it’s all over and the bodies of disembowelled Hordesmen
lay scattered around like broken fenders in a junkyard. Morlug glances at the
others. At Peter, where he’s been pushed into a corner and is being guarded by
a stone-faced Horuz. She points at the box on the table, fingers shaking and
eyes downcast, and begins to sign.
***
Kraglin cusses. Kraglin cusses a lot: at Peter, at the Horde, at the other
Ravagers. Mostly at Peter. Then he swipes the box off the table and smashes it
into the nearest wall. Again, and again, and again.
“I don’t think that’s helping,” says Isla. Kraglin lobs the box at her head
instead.
“Get it open,” he growls. “Now!” Isla hurries to the table, finding the spot
with the most light, and fishes around in her dyed brown curls for a pin. She
finds two, twists them open, and inserts the end of one into the locking
mechanism’s mouth while the other’s stowed in her own for safe-keeping.
“Not ‘lectrical,” she mumbles round it. “Din get knocked out by ee-urm-pee.”
Because that wasn’t already obvious. Of all the times for the Horde to go for
antiquated locks…
Kraglin’s feet are itching. He wants to sprint through the ship. He wants to
bust down the door of Yondu’s cabin and gut that modded freak there and then.
But he won’t. He can’t. There’s no EMP grenades left. Nothing that’d give them
the edge other than Yondu’s arrow. Sure, Kraglin could blast in, all guns
blazing. But what’s to stop Romago slitting Yondu’s throat the moment he opens
the door? And anyway, he wouldn’t be able to kill the bastard without signing
all of their death warrants.
Kraglin knows he wouldn’t be able to resist that kind of temptation. Not if the
story conveyed by Morlug’s trembling fingers is true.
And so Kraglin burns white-hot with impotent rage. He fills his mind with
strangling idiot Terrans and eviscerating Romago, slowly, along with all the
other things he so desperately wants to do.
How could this have happened? How could’ve Peter have been so stupid – how
could they all have been? How could they let Yondu…?
Kraglin’s eyes are stinging. He finds a blank space on the wall to focus on, as
he imagines torching the whole damn galaxy to ash.
“Get it open,” he repeats hollowly. “Just get the damn box open.” Isla doesn’t
need to see his expression to read the urgency behind the words. She nods, and
five minutes later – five agonizing, awful minutes, measured in a silence
broken only by the whinge of a Terran brat demanding to know what was going on
– the lid pops.
Kraglin’s there immediately, grabbing Isla’s wrist to stop her reaching in.
“Don’t touch,” he warns. “Burn right through you.” Isla’s underlip makes a
scared little tremble.
“I don’t think it would,” she says. Kraglin looks down, sees dull metal unlit
by radiation’s ruddy glow. He cusses some more. Then gingerly, trying not to
jostle it any more than’s absolutely necessary, he tips the arrow onto the
tabletop.
“Come on,” he mutters, breath steaming the sleek grey head. “Come on.”
“What’s wrong?” Peter pipes. “Is it broken?”
Never has Kraglin wanted to hit someone more in his life. Isla’s fingers fasten
onto his shoulder and rub lightly. “Just give it a moment,” she says. Kraglin,
hands shaking in his lap, does so. Then another moment. And another. It’s then,
just as he’s about to give up and grab the nearest plasma rifle from a dead
Hordesman’s hands, he sees it.
A shudder of sparks.
They dance up the arrow’s length, waltzing all the way from fletching to tip.
Kraglin’s eyes widen. He bends over the slim weapon, nose almost in singeing-
range, and prays to any deities that might have an ear open. “Come on. Come
on.”
There’s a pulse. It’s more a ripple really, light pooling from the arrow in
sporadic bursts. Slowly, tremulously, the arrow lifts into the air. It’s like
watching a wounded butterfly trying to hover. The shaft shivers and yaws and
lists dangerously to one side. Kraglin stares the whole time, eyes never
straying as if it’s being kept up by the force of his gaze alone, fists
clenched until his knuckles threaten to burst out the skin.
“Come on,” he pleads. The arrow executes a shaky spin. Kraglin doesn’t need to
dredge up his mental map of the ship to know it’s turning to Yondu’s cabin, a
compass that points unerringly towards the captain. “You can do it,” he
whispers.
As if it hears him, the arrow stabilizes. Kraglin barely dares breathe.
Then it’s off – zipping straight through the wall above Peter’s head – he
shrieks – and leaving nothing but a smoking, red-ringed hole. The glow fades
quickly, smouldering heat leaching to chilly air. But the afterimage is seared
into Kraglin’s eyes. He refuses to blink it away.
“Wait here,” he orders Horuz and the rest, rising unsteadily. Isla looks like
she’d like to argue, but shuts her mouth when he shakes his head. “I’ll go and…
I’ll go and…” He can’t put it into words, but he searches anyway, fingers
sketching out embryonic shapes midair. Zqo’s the one to step forwards, in the
end.
“Hurry,” she tells him.
Kraglin does.
“What about me?” Peter calls, as the door whooshes shut. But Kraglin’s already
running, and won’t stop for the goddam galaxy.
Chapter End Notes
     This chapter's very bitty. Hopefully it's still followable! As usual,
     I'd be super-grateful for any form of feedback. Unintelligible
     squealing, constructive criticism, you name it~ xxx
***** He Had It Coming *****
Chapter Summary
     Yo. Super-short upload this time. You may notice I'm uploading these
     in very short succession - I'm a silly impatient dork who tends to
     write out most of a fic before uploading, and then can't be bothered
     to wait a week to gather reviews/kudos/whatnot between chapters. If
     you enjoy my writing, please drop me a comment at any point in any of
     my works! I really appreciate them, and they motivate me like nothing
     else. xxx
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Romago looks at Yondu. Then he looks down at his hand – or more specifically,
the arrow impaling wrist, teleporter, and bed sheets alike. It sizzles gently.
There’s an ascorbic smell, melting metal and fried circuits.
Then his face devolves into a snarl. “Udonta –“
Ain’t the snarl of a predator though. Not anymore. That right there’s the
expression of a predator who just realised they’re prey.
Yondu, who’d propelled himself to the edge of the bed in a dazed heap when his
arrow came punching through the wall, pushes up onto his elbows and allows
himself a smile. A big one.
“I sure hope you’ve still got your sensor-net functionin’,” he says. Then licks
his lips and whistles the arrow straight into Romago’s groin.
By the time Kraglin slams into the doorpad, not expecting it to be locked from
the inside, and bounces off again with an unmistakable string of cusses,
Yondu’s seeing how small he can dice the remains. He sends his arrow on a last
vicious pass through the remnants of the bastard’s skullplate, tremblingly toes
off his boots and sets to sniffing out some clothes that’re still somewhat
wearable.
“Captain!” Kraglin screams, punching the controls. “Captain! Yondu!”
He’ll break the fucking thing permanently, if he keeps at it like that. Yondu
pulls a new pair of pants up, gasping, and decides against walking round the
bed to the emergency med-cabinet in favour of rolling over it. Ow, ow, ow, ow,
ow. Thankfully, the box is set low – designed for when you ain’t exactly
capable of standing. Yondu drags himself down from the mattress, past the
bloody mess that had once been a Xandarian spleen, and rests heavily on the
floor.
Once he reaches his destination – a slow process, punctuated by his rasping
breaths and Kraglin’s increasingly desperate shouts – he knocks the wall twice,
and receives another drawerbox, this empty, which pops out into his waiting
hands.
“Request?” intones a mechanical voice.
“Painkillers,” Yondu rasps. “Strong. Still gotta walk though. And think.”
His mouth hurts, dammit. He whistles for his arrow, and strokes the glowing
fletching while he waits for the medbox to process his handprint and sort the
right dosage. Then, for Kraglin’s sake, who sounds like he’s started shooting
off a fucking plasma rifle or something idiotic like that, and who’ll only get
himself nailed by a rebound if he carries on, the twit – “Activate vocal
override on doorlock.”
The door pings open. Kraglin, caught mid-pound, slithers through and falls on
his face.
He’s up immediately, face blotchy, eyes wild. He takes in the blood, blue and
red alike, and the decorative mechanical sinews and joint components that are
dangling from the cracks in the ceiling. His mouth cracks open in an awed ‘o’.
Then he spots Yondu, collapsed by the medbox, and all but flings himself on top
of him.
“Captain!”
“M’fine, m’fine.” Yondu shoves him off with a low growl. He’s focused on the
medbox. Judging by the clunking noises from deep within the system, it’s almost
done processing. Thank fuck. His back feels like it’s been put through a
mangle. And he doesn’t even want to think about his ass. His legs are twisted
under him, immobile but still aching like a bitch.
When the syringe finally – finally – rattles into the open drawer, Yondu grabs
it with all the eagerness of a junkie in withdrawal, and goes to jam it in his
arm. Kraglin hisses and snatches it away, dodging Yondu’s clumsy, manic attempt
at retaliation.
“It’ll be faster if y’actually hit a vein – c’mon, let me help you. Captain,
please.”
And hell, if he wants to that badly… Yondu relents, breath wheezing. Offers the
inside of his elbow. Kraglin feels around a moment. His fingers are strong,
professional. Only shaking a little. Then he nods, jerkily, and squirts a
dribble of liquid out the tip before sliding the needle in deep. He’s almost
tender what with how slow he pushes the plunger down, and while Yondu knows it
ain’t a wise idea to pump a whole dose of whatever-the-heck-this-is quick, he
still wishes he’d hurry it up. Just so he don’t have to keep looking at him.
When all the liquid’s settled into his bloodstream and he no longer feels like
he’s going to flop over like a ragdoll if he moves more than an inch in an
hour, Yondu barges Kraglin back with rather more force than is necessary, and
arduously finds his feet.
Kraglin doesn’t seem to notice the unspoken dismissal; he bounces up and
immediately starts flapping.
“Uh, captain? Captain, I really don’t think y’should be moving… Painkillers
don’t heal you up or nothing.”
Like he doesn’t already know that. Yondu’s not dumb enough to go walkabout
without doing a bit of an inventory on his new set of hurts; he’s fairly
certain he ain’t gonna die from this, so long as nothing’s busted up inside.
And that means that any longer spent sitting about is time wasted.
A painkiller that don’t make him zone is only gonna last an hour at the most,
after all. He’d like to be on the bridge and giving orders, preferably near a
chair, before his legs give out again. They’ve still got a bunch of men
planetside. There’s Ravagers confined to quarters who ain’t got the first idea
of what’s happening – and of course, there’s the whole damn Horde fleet they’ve
got to outrun.
Captains ain’t afforded the luxury of conking out before a crisis’s over. Not
if they want to stay captains for long.
There’s not enough time to explain all that though. And Yondu don’t have
neither the patience, nor the trust in keeping a steady voice to try. He grits
his teeth and starts for the door.
“I’m goin’,” he says, rubbing the bleeding cracks in his lips. “You come or you
stay. Your choice.”
Kraglin looks at the filleted remnants of Horde captain. He shudders. Then he
grabs Yondu’s discarded shirt and belt, complete with arrow sheath (all of
which are only mildly blood-spattered), and holds them out.
Peace offering.
Yondu’s not too convinced raising his arms is a good idea, what with the
latticework of cuts across his back that he can no longer feel. But he figures
none of them are deep enough to do much other than hurt like a bitch when his
nerves start responding again. He takes the proffered clothing and wriggles
them on.
“Can y’clean this mess up?” he asks, avoiding looking at said mess as he does
so. He cinches the belt in, doing the straps up a few notches looser than
useful in an attempt at sparing his sliced lower back, and hooks the arrow into
place at his side. Then, carelessly – “Though you’re gonna need a fresh pillow.
Think I shredded it.”
Kraglin blinks. “I’ll, uh, send someone in to deal with all this. I’m staying
with you, I think.”
Fucking sentiment.
Yondu makes like he don’t give a shit, hoisting one shoulder higher than the
other in an offhand dismissal. “Do what you fucking want,” he says, and swings
his coat over his back.
Chapter End Notes
     We're nearing the end... Although there's a whole other fic that I
     might have written that follows on from this, because writing is
     excellent procrastination and I am a terrible student.
***** Aftermath *****
Chapter Summary
     TW for child abuse, and child abuse being made light of. Also for
     atypical reactions to rape (in the world of fanfiction, at least. I
     can reliably inform you that people in the real world aren't quite so
     predictable.) Hints of victim blaming too, I guess?
Chapter Notes
     Hey folks~ Nearly there, one more chapter after this, and then a
     quick sequel! Hope y'all enjoy. xxx
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“Can you… Can you just talk to me?” Kraglin says.
He’s got that dumb look on his face, like he’s watching an M-ship blow from the
galleon’s bridge. Desperate but helpless. And utterly pointless, because
Yondu’s no breaking shuttle – and even if he were, ain’t like Kraglin’s googly-
eyes would do much to salvage the situation. So he sets his shoulders, and goes
back to watching the great expanse of space fold and compress around them.
Crew’s on board.
Moon’s evacuated.
They stuck to the plan, letter for letter: sending the Hordeship away on its
pre-allotted course stuffed to the brim with corpses, and their own ship into a
mock death-spiral towards the pockmarked surface of the satellite. Worked like
a fucking charm. All it’d taken was a quick rejig of the engines and a rough
landing, a hasty headcount of all the Ravagers who’d been stranded, a shrug for
any who hadn’t made it onboard in time, and the Eclector was off – shooting
into hyperspace before the Horde realised they’d been played for suckers.
Sure, they’ll be pissed. Sure, they’ll be chasing. But there’s a whole fucking
Ravager fleet waiting for them, and not even the Horde’s dumb enough to take
all of ‘em on. Not when they’re down a captain. Heck, Yondu can practically
relax now. (Good thing too, as his painkillers have started to ebb.)
Everything’s settled, everything’s normal – or so, it would be, if Kraglin
would just quit fretting. Yondu tracks a swirling fold of spacetime until it
twists out of existence. “What’s there t’talk about?” he asks.
Kraglin’s mouth thins further. “Boss – “
“Don’t.”
“Quit shuttin’ me out, I’m trying to help –“
“And doing a mighty shit job of it.” Yondu heaves a sigh, ignoring the ache
that burrows up his spine. Just pain. Just physical. Bodies heal; he’s had
worse. “Look, you wanna help, ya can do what I damn ordered you to five minutes
ago and go give Morlug a hand with the comms rig.” But Kraglin (after a glance
at the yaka arrow, which remains silent and dim) shakes his head.
“I ain’t leaving ya alone,” he states. Even crosses his scrawny arms, like
that’ll make any damn difference. If Yondu wanted him out, he’d be out. Kraglin
trying to be mulish would’ve been adorable or annoying on any other day –
either way, worthy of a tease, a slap round the head, and a reiterated order
that would actually be followed.
Now though, his presence is… well, not exactly comforting. Because Yondu don’t
need to be comforted. But it’s… familiar. Like a well-worn boot, or something.
It’d be even better, if he’d actually shut up for five minutes.
As if reading his thoughts, Kraglin wets his lips and makes to speak again.
“Captain, look, what happened to ya –“
“Happened. Ain’t gonna happen again. What’s the point going on about it?”
Kraglin’s hands make abortive passes through the air, like he’s trying to mime
out the words in his head. “The point is… the point is…” He trails off. Comes
back full force, marching over until Yondu’s view’s blocked by the scrawny
bugger. He scowls the scowl of the righteous-worried-fuckbuddy right in his
goddam face. “Damn it, Yondu. You got raped.”
Yondu’s stomach clenches. “Don’t fucking say that!” he hisses, ramming Kraglin
back against the curved glass. He fastens his sweating palm over his mouth like
he’s trying to shove the words back in. “Fuck!”
“What?” asks Kraglin, mumbling through his fingers. “S’true.” He’s still
looking at him with that blasted mixture of pity and frustration. Like he can
see straight through Yondu’s façade – which is bullshit, because there ain’t no
fucking façade, fucking thank you very much. There ain’t no fucking façade
because what Kraglin thinks happened didn’t and even if it did, Yondu don’t
need to pretend not to be damaged by it when he fucking ain’t.
His crew need a captain. They don’t need some sad sap who mopes around all
depressed-like because he can’t take a bit of brutality in the bedroom.
They respect Yondu – for now. Not because he’s scary as all hell when he’s
gotta be. But because he’s resilient. He takes the punches and comes back
swinging; he shakes off crashes and falls and mistakes and keeps ploughing
forwards, like a fucking juggernaut of blue skin and crooked teeth, laughing in
the face of anything and everything that tries to keep him down. Why should
this be any different? Crew’s reacting more than he is. And it’s a waste of
sympathy all round.
Kraglin though, as usual, has his own filter through which he sees the world.
And he seems to have gotten into his thick skull that this is a world in which
Yondu’s weak enough to crumble under a bit of rough handling. The first mate
stands stiff, spine so tense he’s practically vibrating. His head thunks off
the thick glass between them and the void when Yondu shakes him, teeth bared,
but it don’t shut him up for one moment.
“I know what happened, boss,” he says, gripping Yondu’s sleeves. “I know what
he did to ya –“
“He did nothing I didn’t know he was gonna do!” Yondu barks. “Ain’t fucking
rape –“ and damn, but the mere insinuation of the word being applied to him is
ridiculous enough to make him shudder, “ – if you’re the one who asks for it,
now, is it?”
Kraglin’s shaking his head. “Nah, captain, it weren’t like that…” But Yondu’s
on a track now, and he’s not to be dissuaded.
“What do you know, about what it were like?” he inquires harshly. “You weren’t
there!” Which is all kinds of uncalled for, because heck, he was the one to
order Kraglin below decks in search of the EMP grenades. Which, looking back,
was definitely for the best. But if Kraglin’s gonna try and burrow through his
defences… Well, Yondu’s gonna give him tit for fucking tat. The flash of hurt
over his first mate’s face feels as good as he was expecting.
Yondu grins nastily, and prods Kraglin’s bony sternum hard enough to win a
wince. “Y’know what? It weren’t even that bad. He’s better in the sack than you
are, at any rate. Actually felt it when he fucked me.” He’s fishing for a
reaction, and he gets one – but it’s not the anger he was hoping for.
“Don’t,” says Kraglin quietly. His grip on Yondu’s sleeve becomes more
insistent, and he gazes into his eyes like he’s searching his soul. Probably
won’t like what he finds. Heck, Yondu’s not even sure if he’s got one anymore.
But he looks anyway. “Don’t talk like that. You ain’t gonna make me mad at you.
Not over something like this.”
Kraglin might be an idiot, but sometimes he’s too damn smart for his own good.
Yondu pins him against the glass a second longer. Then he snorts like he
couldn’t care less, and releases him. Stomps over to his chair and throws
himself on it – regretting that pretty darn quick, because fucking ow, fuck it
all to hell. But he swallows the groan. Kraglin don’t need more encouragement.
“You can think whatever you like,” he says eventually. “Just don’t go throwing
the wrong words around. Not in front of the boys.”
Kraglin’s nod is subdued, but not defeated. “Yes sir. But… boss, I ain’t just
gonna forget…”
Yondu could bang his head on the floor. “Why not?” That comes out a bit
petulant for his liking. He covers himself with an iron-melting glare, hands
clenching on the chair grips like he’s strangling them. “I already have.”
Kraglin takes a step closer. Moving tentative but sure, like he’s on unstable
ground but determined to reach the other side.
“You’re lying,” he says.
“And you’re a fucking pest, but I don’t call you out on it.” Yondu releases the
chair arms, letting the padded plastic regain its shape. He strokes his arrow’s
fletching where it lays across his lap; radiation hums beneath his fingertips.
“Look. If I say it weren’t what you wanna call it, it weren’t. And next time I
tell you to get out, you git.”
Kraglin sighs, but knows better than to argue when Yondu’s laying down the law.
“Yessir.”
“Hmph.” Yondu pretends to be engrossed rubbing crusted blood from the arrowtip.
Damn thing needs a bath. So does he – he’s sticky and uncomfortable as well as
sore beneath his clothes, but the thought of trekking down to the washracks and
scrubbing some bastard’s jizz out his ass while the other men watch is absurd
enough to be funny. What’s a little more discomfort? He’ll hold til the night
shift. Kraglin’s still hovering in his peripherals, looking worryingly like
he’s considering what to say next. He oughta do something about that. Idle
hands make minds that’ve too much time to mull crap over and come to their own
stupid conclusions. If he doesn’t keep the man busy, he’ll be fending off
therapy sessions all damn night. And while he might like Kraglin’s company (for
some unfathomable reason), his infernal whinging’s almost as irritating as
Peter’s.
Peter.
Yondu’s fingers freeze on the arrow tip.
“Shit.”
Kraglin’s there instantly; of course he is, the sentimental idiot. Looking
worried and all. “You alright boss? I mean, not alright, after everything, but
–“
Yondu shuts him up with an upheld hand. “Where’s the brat?”
Kraglin’s expression instantly shutters. “He shoulda stayed put like you told
him, boss.”
“Shit.” Because Kraglin’s marginally more tolerant of the Terran brat than the
majority of the crew – mostly because Peter’s a gutsy little idjit with more
cunning than brains who’ll go round tying bootlaces together and slipping the
knots on the boys’ hammocks when he’s bored, and he probably reminds Kraglin of
himself when he was that age – not that the finicky bastard would ever admit
it. If Kraglin’s pissed at Peter, Yondu can only imagine what the rest of ‘em
will be thinking.
He has a sudden image, startling in its clarity, of Peter being slow-roasted
over one of Shorro’s open ovens.
The growing ache between Yondu’s brows is hardly his biggest worry when he
can’t walk without feeling like his innards are gonna come sliding out, but he
pinches it anyway it the vain hope it’ll abate. “Ah, let’s go rescue him before
Horuz starts selecting prime cuts.”
Kraglin scoffs. “Dumbass gets what’s coming to him, boss, if you ask me.”
“Yeah, I didn’t.” Yondu braces himself on the chairarms, gingerly inches
upwards. Ow. He refuses to watch Kraglin watching him, focussing instead on the
array of colourful knickknacks he’s got stacked along the panel edge.
The latest’s a spindly insect made from red glass. It’s too delicate for life
on the bridge. But Peter’d been the one to acquire it; he’d pickpocketed it at
the last port – pretended he’d lifted it by accident when he’d been going for a
wallet, almost got caught in the process, and tossed it at Yondu’s head when
they made it back to ship and he’d put the boy on bog-scrubbing duty to pay his
penance. It’s survived the rough landing on the moon – but Yondu can see the
cobwebs of cracks leaking out from its joints. Next time they dock hard, it’ll
shatter. There’s no point in letting pretty things sit gathering dust in a
cupboard somewhere just because they’re fragile though. No point expending time
and energy gluing it together neither. He’ll just have to enjoy it while it
lasts.
Ain’t that a maxim to live by?
“You alright?” asks Kraglin again, softly, from his side. How he got in so
close without Yondu noticing, he doesn’t know – must be more tired than he
thought. One bony hand hovers against Yondu’s elbow, almost touching, but not
quite. The captain takes vindictive delight in slapping it away.
“You a broken record?” he parrots back in the same tone. Kraglin – thank
whatever deities you subscribe to – rolls his eyes, and for a moment
everything’s normal and right in the universe.
“Aw, just stay put, would you, boss?”
Yondu’s about to huff that he’s not old enough to be benched just yet, but
there’s something in the fond way Kraglin’s looking at him that makes him
reconsider. That and the fact that the thought of stomping through the
Eclector’s corridors like he hasn’t just taken a massive metal-ridged cock
is... well, unthinkable, really. Still, there’s a job to be done. He looks at
Kraglin expectantly, until the first mate throws up his hands defeat and starts
for the door.
“Alright, alright. I’ll fetch your bloody kid.”
“Ain’t my bloody anything,” Yondu calls after him.
“Sure, boss. Whatever you say.”
***
Peter’s grabbed by the scruff of his collar, lifted from his seat in the
corner, and deposited gracelessly at Kraglin’s feet.
“There,” says Horuz. He looks murderous. But Horuz looks murderous any time
he’s not looking hung over, hungry or stupid, and as Kraglin can’t see any
signs of serious injury on the boy he supposes it’s nothing to worry about. In
fact, the crew have showed remarkable restraint. The only wounds Peter’s
sporting besides the bruises on his wrist from where he was grabbed by the
Hordesmen guard are a new bust lip and the beginnings of a black eye. A quick
glance-over reassures Kraglin that neither’s likely to cause permanent damage.
He should be a bit more thorough in his inspection – would be, any other day.
But right now it’s all he can do to resist giving the brat a kick of his own.
His fault. It’s his damn fault.
They had a plan, dammit. A good goddam plan. Would’ve run like clockwork – but
this kid had to get in the way.
Now Kraglin don’t mind Peter. Most of the time. Heck, occasionally he even
likes him. But the boy should know better than to disobey captain’s orders when
there’s enemies on board. Captain says stay, you stay. When Peter ignored that
order, it wasn’t just himself he’d jeopardized. It was every bloody man, woman
and being on board. And it’d been Yondu who’d taken the fall.
Kraglin’s not sure he can forgive the Terran for that. No matter what Yondu
says.
So when Peter scrambles to his feet, all snotty nose and angry, trembling
mouth, Kraglin keeps his face cold and nods back the way he came. “Keep up,” is
all he says. Peter swipes a dirty hand over his leaking nostrils, bringing away
slime and blood.
“What crawled up your ass and died?”
Mutinous and scrappy, looking for a fight. When Kraglin keeps walking though,
he looks between him and Horuz – who glowers in a way that screams you’re on
tonight’s menu – and decides it’s in his best interests to follow. The slap of
his oversized boots rings loud along dim-lit corridors. Kraglin strides ahead,
not bothering to shorten his paces, and Peter has to trot to keep up.
“Where’re we going?” he asks, when it becomes clear the first mate isn’t in the
mood for small-talk. “Why’s it so dark everywhere? Is something broken?”
“Naw,” says Kraglin shortly. “But I can change that. Starting with yer neck.”
Peter stumbles, catches himself on a convenient jutting doorframe before he
falls.
Crap. Kraglin’s pissed.
“Whaddid I do?” he implores of the leather jacket’s retreating back. There’s no
answer. Just the rhythmic drum of boot on metal. It settles in Peter’s mind
like a war tattoo, leading him on to battle and blood. He shivers. Peers
behind, at the blue shadows that encroach over the wallpipes and stretch dark
fingers from every crevasse. Shivers some more, and runs to catch up. “Wait –
Kraglin, wait. Where are we going?”
“Bridge.”
“To see Yondu?”
“Right.”
Peter’s sense of portending doom burgeons. His shoulders hunch in their too-big
coat. “He mad?” he mutters. Kraglin’s gaze is fixed on the corridor ahead.
“No,” comes the sour reply. “But he oughta be.”
Whatever that means. However, for now the reassurance that one person on this
ship doesn’t want him stuffed, roasted, and served with an apple in his gob is
enough for Peter. Even if that one person is the biggest damn bastard of the
lot.
Chapter End Notes
     Please comment/review! I really appreciate it - they cheer me up and
     motivate me. Hope the mid-scene perspective shifts aren't too
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     uploading this while half asleep, do let me know! XXX
***** Moving Forwards *****
Chapter Summary
     Final chapter of this series! Keep your eyes peeled for the next one~
     xxx And please, please, drop me a comment if you've read and enjoyed.
     I feed on them.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The biggest damn bastard of the lot is waiting for them when Kraglin ushers him
onto the Bridge, punching the panel to make the door crash shut rather than
click. Peter jumps. That sounded worryingly… final. Still, he knows that so
long as he’s part of this crew, it’s not Kraglin’s wrath he has to worry about.
With that in mind, he lifts his chin, displaying the swollen lip taking up half
his face, and marches over to greet his captain.
Yondu’s lounged out in his chair like a cat in sunlight. Peter feels a short
surge of annoyance. It’s not like they’ve just been attacked by pirates, or
anything. Not like there’s repairs to be made, crew to be calmed, revenge to be
plotted. Heck, he’s spent the last hour being snarled at, shoved around and
smacked by a bunch of dickheads who won’t even tell him what he did wrong. It’s
all gone to pot on deck; so of course, it’s the perfect time for Yondu to slack
off.
“You’ve looked better,” he greets him, hands on hips. It’s true. He and Romago
must’ve had a fight. Judging by the lack of Horde captain, Yondu won. But not
by much. Yondu pushes himself up a little straighter – did he just wince? – and
raises his blood-crusted eyebrows.
“You can talk, boy.” He’s got a point. Peter’s hand comes up on automatic to
rub the puffy skin circling his left eye socket. Yondu’s grin is jaggedly
genuine. “Gonna have a beauty of a shiner tomorrow.”
Peter sniffs angrily. “You can thank Horuz for that.” There’s a split-second
where the grin fades. Yondu almost looks surprised – something tingles in
response, deep in Peer’s gut; that pathetic little desperation that still
latches onto anyone who shows him concern. Was he… worried? About him?
Of course, Yondu spoils it at the first opportunity. He props his chin up on
his fist and turns to watch the stars. “Thought he’d have broken your nose at
least.”
…And there that little nugget of hope goes.
A-hole.
“Yeah thanks,” says Peter. “I’m fine, by the way.”
Kraglin’s standing close by. Peter, used to being the butt of all jokes passed
between captain and first mate, is expecting a mocking laugh, a ruffle of sharp
grubby nails through his hair. Instead, he hears Kraglin’s teeth grit. A hand
clamps down on his shoulder like a vice. It’s too hard, too tight, squeezing
until the bones creak; Peter wriggles like an eel but can’t escape, and his
face screws up in pain.
“You should be damn grateful, that’s what you should –“
“Kraglin.”
Only Yondu can sound that damn formidable, arrow in its sheath and face as
beaten as ground beef. He leans back, rolling his head over the back of his
chair like a king getting comfy on his throne. The red glare petrifies them
both. Peter feels Kraglin deflate. He lets his own lungful of air release too.
For a moment, he thinks that’ll be that; that Kraglin’ll posture and mutter and
leave him be – but heaven forbid life be that kind to Peter Jason Quill.
There’s a short pause. Then the fingers dig into Peter’s collarbone again,
wringing out another yelp. When Kraglin speaks, it’s clipped and blunt, each
word angled to pierce right through him.
“Boss. It were his damn fault.”
He’s shaking – literally shaking – with some dark fury that Peter can’t
understand. His fault? What does that mean? Frustration and fear compound into
fury – but before Peter can retaliate Yondu’s speaking again, eyes narrowed to
bleeding-red knife-slits. “That ain’t for you to decide.”
“Yeah,” Peter pipes, struggling in the grip like a hooked worm. “You’re just
mad at me because you weren’t there!”
On the list of stupid things to say, that probably clocks in around number
three. After accusing Yondu of lazing round the bridge when there might well be
enemy ships in pursuit, and pointing out that they’re both idiots for flying
them into an ambush to begin with. Yondu looks like he’s not sure if he wants
to laugh or whistle. Peter doesn’t know what Kraglin’s thinking, but the sudden
release of his shoulder can’t be anything good.
“The fuck did you just say to me.”
When you’re the smallest and weakest member of a crew of space buccaneers, you
get pretty damn good at reading people. When you’re also the youngest, this
comes hand in hand with a complete inability to apply this reading to any
common sense. Right now, all Peter’s getting is that he’s hit the nail on the
head.
“I’m right, aren’t I!” he crows. He dances forwards, turning on the first mate
with a jig of the feet. “I’m right! I’m right, and you know it!”
Behind him, Yondu’s eyes widen, and he struggles to his feet. “Kraglin!”
That tone of voice is enough to leech the elation right out of Peter. It drains
from his toes, out into the cold dead metal hull. Looking at Kraglin’s face,
tight and white with unbridled rage, Peter realises that maybe, possibly, he
has misjudged. But he’s still certain in his conclusion. And, with a fortitude
only nine-year-old bravado can muster, he hoists his chin and looks Kraglin
square in the eye.
“I’m still right,” he says.
Yondu’s forearms are shaking with the effort of holding himself up. There’s
sweat dribbling over the slices on his cheek, and he tries to step forwards
only to wince and think better of it. “Kraglin, you better not –“
“I ain’t doing nothing to him,” Kraglin says. He’s reassuring Yondu, but his
eyes are on Peter. They’re almost black, pitted in wells of shadow and colder
than the abyss stretching out beyond the observation glass. “He ain’t worth
it.” Then, before Peter can start sputtering in indignation – “And he’s right.
Like he says.”
“Kraglin,” says Yondu again. Usually Peter would make a joke about how Yondu’s
getting senile, what with all this repeating himself. But even he’s wise enough
to know that now’s not the time. “It weren’t your fault neither. Don’t go
blamin’ yourself for this. That’s an order.” He sounds all serious and captain-
y and everything.
But then his leg trembles.
Peter sees pain flash across his face, and for a horrifying moment thinks he’s
going to fold back on the chair. Kraglin’s there though, a scaffold of lanky
limbs that shoots past Peter in a blur of red leather, black tattoos, sweat and
oil-grime. Ignoring the Terran completely, he wraps his arms around Yondu and
somehow manages to keep them both upright – though his knees wobble and he has
to lean back for counterbalance.
“I shoulda been with you,” Kraglin says, once they’re no longer in danger of
collapsing to the deck. Yondu shakes his head. He returns the embrace stiffly,
looping an elbow around Kraglin’s bony nape and keeping him close.
Blegh.
“I should’ve been there,” Kraglin repeats, firmer this time. His voice is a
breathless mutter against his captain’s temple. Yondu’s one-armed hold
tightens, blue fingers clutching the leather between Kraglin’s shoulder-blades.
It’s a movement too imperceptible to notice, unless you were looking for it.
Peter, who is, pulls a face. Gross old men.
“Then what would you have done?” Yondu asks, voice as rough as Peter’s ever
heard it. “Offered yourself up instead?” Kraglin’s nodding before he’s finished
speaking. Yondu halts him with a violent snarl. “No. No. Don’t go getting dumb
ideas, lad. I’d rather die.”
Kraglin can’t seem to compute that statement. Peter can’t either, but that’s
more for lack of understanding and a vague disgust at all things romantic. The
first mate boggles at Yondu, mouth opening and closing like one of them little
fishies in the aquarium Peter’s grandpa had taken him to visit when mom had
first gotten sick: like if Yondu taps the glass too hard, he’ll start and flee
away. But when his eyes skim back to Peter, the whirlwind of emotions within
them settles, coalescing into cold hard hatred. “But… but you’d do that… for
him? He ain’t fucking worth it. I ain’t neither. Damn it, boss. No one is.”
Peter could scream.
He hasn’t done anything. He knows he hasn’t done anything! But for some reason,
Horuz and the rest are all looking to blame him for this mess – like he’s got
anything to do with those ugly, stupid Hordesmen setting up their stupid
ambush! It’s typical. Really, it is. When he’s being good and behaving, it’s
all Peter the invisible kid, relegated to grunt work and lookout duty when he’s
sure he can blast plasma pistols off with the rest of them, if only they’d let
him try. But as soon as anything goes wrong…
He supposes he should be used to be getting the blame by now. But there’s still
something about Kraglin being mad, Kraglin who laughs at his pranks and taught
him how to dip pockets without getting caught – well, without getting caught
much…
Peter won’t admit that his anger hurts more than the rest though. Not in a
thousand years. They want to hate him? He can bloody well return the favour.
“He’s worth it,” Yondu says, pulling away from his first mate and looking him
sternly in the eye. He lets the silence drag an ominous moment. Then – “We
gonna have a problem with that?”
Kraglin looks like he’d very much like to say yes. “Yondu, this ain’t right,
you can’t just ignore his part in this –“
Peter’s nails carve his palms. Kraglin’s as mean and stupid as the rest of
them. He even opens his mouth to tell him so – but Yondu only has eyes for his
first mate in that moment, and he interrupts Peter before he’s begun. “I do as
I fucking well want.” The words are gravelled: somewhere between earnest and
furious. “Don’t ya dare go blaming him – y’hear me, Krags? Not the boy’s fault.
He was just in the wrong place at the wrong damn time.”
“If he weren’t dumb enough to leave the cupboard in the first place…” Kraglin
begins. He’s sent stumbling by an open-handed smack to the ear.
“No! Still not yer place.”
Teeth bared, eyes tight with pain, Yondu grabs Kraglin by his skinny bicep and
reels him in chest-to-chest. The Hraxian works his jaw from side to side,
probing his tenderised cranium like he’s worried it’s gone concave. Perhaps
that was a wee bit much. But heck, Yondu reckons he can be excused for being a
bit on edge right now. Besides, this is something that needs to be said.
He leans in and delivers the rest of his speech up in Kraglin’s ugly mug, as if
proximity’s gonna make the words more likely to sink through it. “Listen now,
cause I’m only sayin’ this once. What happened in there, it were my choice, it
were my decision. He gave me an option. I took it, and that ain’t on no one but
me –“
And Peter doesn’t want to hear another word.
Because there Yondu goes again. Defending him. Pretending to act the hero when
everyone knows he’s really just a slimy, gross old pirate who gets his kicks
from threatening to eat people.
Why’d he have to interfere? Couldn’t he have left him to it? Let the captain do
whatever he’d been planning – make him into a Terran pastry, or whatever? Heck,
Yondu’s the one always nagging Peter to grow up. Saying he ought to act like a
man. He just never gives him a chance to do so. Honestly. There was Peter,
about to face pain with a smile, to take his punishment and come out laughing
like a real Ravager… And Yondu stole it all, right out from under him.
Stopping him from proving himself. Getting in his way.
Like he always does, the old git. This is his chance – his chance to speak up,
to change things himself, rather than just relying on the captain to do it for
him. He’s got to take it. He’s got to.
“It wasn’t my fault!” he interrupts. His words are hard, plosive little bursts
of fury. Yondu’s mouth snaps shut, and he and Kraglin alike both turn to stare.
“I didn’t ask him to do anything for me. He just did it anyway! Stop blaming me
for everything! If he likes getting beaten up, I don’t see how it’s my
problem!”
He’s almost shouting by the last words, and has to blink several times,
terrified that he might start to cry.
For a moment, he thinks Kraglin’s about to storm over and wring his neck. Yondu
stops him though. Just a squeeze of the arm. That’s all it takes. When he looks
at Peter, it’s like he’d forgotten he was in the room – Peter sniffles angrily,
because it’s not like they’ve been talking about him or anything. Geez.
Yondu waits until the deadly tension’s drained from Kraglin’s muscles. Then he
scrapes a tired hand through his blood-stained stubble and groans.
“Boy, you gotta learn to keep your mouth shut.”
“Shouldn’t have given me a translator chip if you didn’t want me to talk!”
“Believe me, I regret it every day.”
Peter’s face crumples. The fists he’s holding clenched by his sides tremble. “I
just… I don’t understand,” he says, in a small voice. “Why’s everyone blaming
me?” Kraglin looks like he’s about to give him the alphabetical list, until
Yondu smacks him in the arm. Peter continues, unimpeded. “We escaped, didn’t
we?” he asks, voice wavering as it raises in pitch. “We got away, the Horde
guys are all dead, we picked up everyone who was stranded on the moon... Your
plan worked! So why’s everyone so angry?”
Yondu shrugs. He’s not one for wrapping brats in deepspace insulation so they
can hide away when the universe gets too ugly for their precious little
peepers. But there’s enough people who know about this mess already. No point
adding one more to his blackmail list – and a loud-mouthed little Terran who
doesn’t know how to follow orders, at that.
“Per’aps you’ll work it out one day,” he says.
***
Peter does. Eventually.
The revelation occurs when he’s lounging on his bunk, tossing and catching a
plastic figurine he’d picked from some rich baby’s perambulator while they were
smiling and waving to the crowds in the wake of the Dark Aster’s spectacular
plummet. It’s got a small round body and stubby limbs, too big to be swallowed
and too smooth to be chewed apart. The star-shaped specks on its belly twinkle
prettily when it catches the light. S’just the right size to sit on an M-ship’s
dashboard.
Heaven knows why he picked it up.
Peter throws it with both hands, catches it in one, throws it with one hand,
catches it in both. This continues for a while, alternating between right and
left. Hooked on a Feeling chants softly in the background, the headset looped
over the back of his chair. He’s listened to all the tracks on Awesome Mix Vol.
2 by now. They’re magical when they pour into his ears; synesthetic, colours
and shapes and smells and sounds. Chocolate chip muffins cooling on the window
rack. Sunlight and dry mown grass in the summer. A waft of cool jasmine
perfume. The far-off imprint of a thin woman with a shaved head, wrapped in a
geometric-patterned skirt, who had helped him tear up the bread crusts when
they fed the pigeons in the park.
It’s intense. Incredible, but intense. Peter needs to return to something
familiar, if only for a while, before he can listen to them again. And so he
turns his mind to the familiar too.
Dirty red leather and rust. Greasy mohawks, slaps on the back, whistling and
glaring and snaggletoothed grins.
His Ravager coats still hang off the end of his bunk. One trenchcoat, one
jacket. Both as scarred and patched as he is. The others have gotten rid of
their leathers by now, exchanging them gradually for dresses picked up at the
Xandarian lowtown market – ‘half price, only for our saviours!’ – miniature
custom-made jumpsuits courtesy of the ever-obliging Corpsman Dey, pants spun
from strong weave spider-silk (‘they feel so breathable,’ Drax had been eager
to explain). But Peter can’t quite bring himself to lose that chapter of his
life forever.
Anyway, red suits him.
He smirks, clapping the toy between his hands. Oh, he doesn’t doubt they’ll be
seeing the Ravagers again. Not after a certain stone was swapped out for a
certain troll doll. Yondu’s not the type to let that slide, not even if he sees
the funny side; stopping a potentially catastrophic power from falling into the
hands of a supra-galactic maniac doesn’t count for much when you’ve cheated a
Ravager of their paycheque. Peter wonders how far he’ll get this time. Still,
at least the bastard actually let him handle this megalomaniac himself.
…Which gets him thinking.
Which gets him remembering.
Which gets him thinking again…
And this time, it doesn’t take the measly twelve percent of the story he’d been
privy to, for him to figure the rest of it out.
The Horde captain’s frigid leer. The thread of metal braided through his
tongue. That uncomfortable twist in Peter’s guts that pulled tight when the
modded man smiled… Then Yondu, stepping forwards and casually offering himself
up. As if it hadn’t meant a damn thing.
The toy slips from Peter’s lax fingers and smacks him in the face. He doesn’t
notice.
“Fuck.”
Well. That explains why Kraglin hardly talked to him for a year. And why he got
partnered with Horuz on that job on Ergonar, the one which’d almost ended in
him being used for target practice. Peter sweeps his tongue over the roof of
his dry mouth. “Fuck,” he says again, because he can’t think of much else. And
really, what more is there to say?
Time passed.
Kraglin’s cold glower waned to the occasional snigger at his expense, then a
squeeze on the shoulder when he lost a partner out by Ba-Banis, then a glass of
whiskey and a tight, elated hug when Peter, still horrifically underage,
piloted his first M-ship successfully back to dock. Horuz and Zqo never stopped
giving him the stink-eye; but then again, they’d been doing that a long time
before and would’ve been a long time after regardless. The day-to-day battle of
Ravager existence meant grudges didn’t last long. Those who held them had a
nasty tendency to wind up face-down in the field. Once Peter had proved he was
useful rather than music-spouting deadweight, any and all past transgressions
had been forgotten.
And Yondu… Yondu had never mentioned it again. None of it. Not the Horde, not
the ambush, not the captain or whatever things the captain might have done to
him in his own damn cabin. Peter suspects that that might be a hint. Yondu
doesn’t give those freely. But when he does, it’s always in a person’s best
interests to listen.
Slowly, Peter rolls onto his side. He fishes the toy out from where it’s rolled
under his pillow. He rubs its bulbous thorax between his palms.
Then he tosses it, catches it, and tosses it again.
Chapter End Notes
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