Booties and Grooties

[Halloqueen]

The Devil in Hell ✘ we're told was chained
✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿ A thousand years he there remained ✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿
He neither complained nor did he groan
But was determined to start a ๑ ๑ Hell ๑ ๑ of his own

Gracie shoots Rocket a look because she knows it isn’t a tail light or a speeding ticket or anything like, but clearly Rocket has never heard of playing it dumb. She’s got half a mind to start arguing with him - lets see you come up with something better, fluffy - but she knows fighting with Rocket in front of the corpsmen is only going to look worse than brazenly trying to flirt with him so she keeps her mouth shut.

While everyone else panics internally, Meela jumps from where she’s hanging on Grace’s belt to the control panel, her thick folds of skin spreading out between her little paws so she glides gracefully towards the image of Richard Rider. Meela’s a space squirrel (or some other clever kind of space name) and in the wild they glide through space in small packs feeding off spillage from energy rifts and dying stars. However Meela is not in the wild, and needs energy from elsewhere. Most of the time she feeds off attention and positive energy with upstanding Richard Rider has plenty of. She can taste it all the way from their ship but because she’s only a dumb little squirrel she just winds up crawling all over the image of Richard Rider and dumbly licking the air where she thinks he is.

“Aww, Meela, hunny, no,” Grace coos as she unhooks Meela’s paws from the dashboard and drapes her over the edge of her belt, where Meela sits happily letting her fluffy tail drift back and forth. Grace leans on hand on the back of Groot’s chair and buses her self scratching Meela while she lets Rocket get all the yelling out of his system. She catches Groot’s eye and shakes her head because Rocket is insulting the corpsmen like that’s any better. She taps her foot huffily because her offer is being turned down and she’s not happy with that. She doesn’t care how classy or justice-tastic this guy is, she’s taking it personally. Plus, it means that Rocket is right and she can’t stand that. She wants to zip up her suit but that would seem like an admission of guilt so now she’s stuck there like an idiot. 

Her eyes slam shut and her eyebrows shoot up when Richard explains that there’s warrant on the ship because its involved in human trafficking and seven murders. Flark Rocket, she thinks, that is a lot of murders. “Trafficking, Rocket? Murders, Rocket?” For a second Grace just stands there like someone’s thrown a bucket of ice water on her, and then she lets out a very long sigh because its sinking in that she’s in a huge pile of trouble now. Rocket sneers at her and Grace is about to sneer back when what he says gives her an idea.

He thinks she’s cargo. Which means he probably thinks she’s a victim in this case. Which means if she plays along she might just make it out of this alive and not in jail, her two favorite things to be. And she’s just about to start signal for help behind Rocket’s back when she catches sight of Groot. He’s making a pathetic scared face and a very soft whining noise and Grace gets a big taste of guilt. If she pretends to be cargo they’re absolutely get charged with trafficking. While Grace doesn’t know how innocent they are, she figures she should at least do something neutral that won’t really impact them. 


“Hey I don’t remember bribing anyone. If I recall, I asked for a little leeway before I realized this was some sort of trafficking shake down.” Grace snaps, waving an angry finger at Richard’s flickering imagine. Her pink eyebrows dip down because she’s in full blown scolding mode. “For a corpsmen, you’ve sure got a knack for slipping in dirty suggestions where they don’t belong.”

Then Gracie sighs and scrubs at her face, casting Rocket an apologetic look. She wants to believe they aren’t traffickers or murders, they’re actually the nicest employers she’s had in a while and Groot seems genuinely sweet. She doesn’t want to abandon them but she doesn’t see how she can help, and she has to take care of herself first. “Alright, look, I’m not with these guys. I’m just a mechanic” Gracie holds up her belt still filled with tools for Richard to see, “These jerks just hired me to fix up their ship - I had no idea they were criminals. So if its all the same to you I’d like to officially withdraw from this conversation.”

[ereht tuo si hturt eht]

xx
x

r i c h a r d x r i d e r
just another nova centurion, space policeman, completely terran and into the whole justice thing.

• whatever the hell meela is, rocket decides that it is just going to make things worse when the overzealous nova corpsman sees it and then decides that rocket is clearly trafficking both sentient and probably not as sentient life. ******** that, rocket thinks. he almost hisses at the space rodent, but luckily for meela, grace manages to get her back and on her hula hoop belt. still, rocket doesn't think this bodes well for him. under normal circumstances, he can handle things not boding well for him -- blasting his way out with specialized guns, blasting his way out with explosives better than anything earth could come up with, or just simply outrunning whoever he needs to avoid. unfortunately, this situation at hand would be best solved with outrunning the nova corps, which is exactly the only thing he can't do right now. (he does have some great weapons and explosives buried in the belly of the ship, but quite frankly he really doesn't want to murder a nova corps officer even though he wouldn't mind murdering a nova corps officer -- get what i'm saying?)
  
  when grace confronts him about the trafficking and murders, rocket looks at her like she's insane. does she really think he could have pulled all that off? (honestly, he could have -- but if he had done it, he wouldn't have been caught by the nova corps.) he scowls and rolls his eyes at grace, "be real. if it was me doing it, they wouldn't even have a flarking idea it was going on." also murder? not really much his style -- he's more into punches, stealing and space chases and getting hella grippa ganga rich preferably without killing things. rocket has some morals (not many, but some actually just one -- don't kill unless they're gonna kill me because my lifespan ain't that long and i just wanna live it out with a bang.)
  
  richard doesn't take solace in rocket's words (and he does hear them, but perhaps that's on purpose). "i wouldn't be so sure about that subject: 89p13, we know plenty about your space. . . shenanigans," for a moment, richard forgets the word 'crime' and he kind of slips back into a feeling of being stuck on earth as a principal scolding some elementary school kid for putting a bunch of glitter in a tub of paste or whatever. he notices the look on rocket's face when he says the word 'shenanigans' and he's almost a little embarrassed -- almost. but he reminds himself that he's not a walking and talking raccoon reminiscent of meowth from pokemon but a raccoon instead of a bipedal cat.
  
  rocket scowls at being called subject: 89p13 because hey, he has a name and it's rocket. being called 'subject' makes him not so fondly reminisce about being unmade and remade over and over again and ******** that s**t hurt to high heavens. "hey bucket head, i've got a name, you d'ast idiot," he doubts that richard cares, but he has to have some semblance of dignity.
  
  "right, the alias rocket," wasn't there a song done by the beatles named 'rocket raccoon?' richard shrugs and rolls his eyes before addressing grace, who's now prattling on him about how he's the one that insinuated she was trying to bribe him with breasts and flirting. this puts him into an awkward situation and he tries to respond with something, but his mouth kind of goes dry because maybe it was just a coincidence that her suit was unzipped enough to see her breasts. luckily, she continues to talk and explains that she's not actually with rocket and groot, but instead is their mechanic and not actually a part of whatever it is they're doing.
  
  she wants to eject herself from the conversation and richard thinks that that might actually be for the best because then she can't talk down to him more about how he's the disgusting one. (he actually does feel bad now, because he insinuated that she had been flirting with him to get out of a ticket or jail when it might have just been a coincidence that she was licking her lower lip and showing off her bosom.)
  
  what the nova corps doesn't know, and what rocket raccoon and groot don't know either, is that there's a really secret compartment that not even rocket or groot could find and they're convinced they had found every single goddamned compartment there is. they also don't know that the trafficking gets worse than just selling sentient beings being sold for cheap labor -- they're also manipulated and controlled and their mind gets turned into swiss cheese shaped jell-o so that they become more compliant and are then able to do whatever the receiving party of the sentient being has in mind. most of these things are pretty unsavory, as well (so unsavory that even rocket would feel like this s**t needs to stop). what they don't know is that this is because of a certain infinity stone that was picked up from earth once loki was defeated in new york and then stolen from some remnant of hydra that doesn't call itself hydra and clearly thinks they're more significant to the universe than they actually are. when they picked it up, they promised the dumb humans something powerful in return and gave them something that looked pretty damn intimidating but was essentially nothing more harmful than a glass whale paperweight.
  
  of course, their shenanigans happened to take a wrong turn and as such, they lost their ship with their precious cargo and it wound up in the paws of rocket and groot.
  
  richard is about to decide what kind of citation to give them, as well as tractor beam aboard rocket and groot since they have outstanding warrants on themselves, when a call from the worldmind comes in about something that is infinitely more important. the worldmind chimes that they have an infestation of crime on a planet in the outskirts of xandarian territory. richard doesn't immediately pull away from rocket, groot and grace, though. instead, he skims over rocket and groot's crime list and finds that trafficking and murder aren't really on their resume of things they do. "consider yourselves lucky," richard says, because the call that has been placed in is a highest level of scary evil. "and don't expect to let yourself slide out of a situation like this again," richard has no personal grudge against them and he is a follow the rules kind of guy, so he does let them slide (but he'd like it to be known that he's not fond of the idea and he's a little reluctant). "there's an outpost in the seventh sector of the next quadrant over, it's a small xandarian outpost. if you consider leaving the ship for the nova corps, i will consider letting them know not to arrest you. don't consider this as your criminal records being expunged," richard says.
  
  rocket doesn't like compromising a lot of the time, but this is something he can compromise on. "consider it a deal," and with that richard nods and shuts the transmission off before pulling away a safe distance from the rust bucket tin can that the criminals are in before making a stargate and heading to the emergency of super scary evil.
  
  once richard is gone, rocket breathes a heavy sigh of relief and leans back in the seat for a moment before turning, stiffening and looking at gracie. "you wanna check with us before trying to flirt your way out of a situation like that?" rocket sneers. but in the end, it's okay because htey have permission to set and land on a xandarian outpost, which is probably a lot safer than shi'ar or skrull outposts.
  
  "i am groot," groot says.
  
  rocket sighs, rubs his face and then, "i know i know i know."

[ereht tuo si hturt eht]

xx
x

r i p l e y x i l t c h e n k o - k o n e v a
expert hacker and grunge fashionista and (straight up gnarly as ********) junkie.

• the (actually pretty understandable) shouting that he does makes her pull the blankets over her head because that's her last line of defense since there's no where else to go unless she wants to seep into the walls (she doesn't know that she actually has that ability to turn rainbow brite and ghostly yet). as peter gets closer, she keeps the blankets over her head because maybe if she chokes herself to death she can get out of this mess. it's a very childish thing to do, but ripley hasn't really graduated much past five years old. when she stops hearing his footsteps and he tells her that he's just trying to help her because marta and being beaten up, she lowers the blanket halfway down her face so that just her eyes are peeking out from behind it.
  
  there probably are a couple somethings wrong with ripley upstairs, because i might bring back the really low iq and notches above what's considered 'retarded' but make her super smart in that she can learn fast and whatever but that's up for debate and i'll think about it. she can hear the crinkling of the wrapper and sees the shimmer of the silver and it looks like a candy bar. when he holds it out to her, she doesn't take it because that means leaving the confines of her safety blanket that technically belongs to peter.
  
  when he wraps it back up, she expects him to have given up on getting it to her and expects that he'll just take it for himself because that's what people do. that's what men do. instead, he slides it over to her and it lands at the foot of the blanket and this startles her. she stares down at the bar and then back up at peter with really wide and really, really confused eyes because holy s**t this is someone being nice to her. her fingers are shaking underneath the blanket, but her gnarly fingers that are sort of alien-like long with really disgustingly short nails slip out and take the bar and then pull it up to her mouth from under the blanket so she's still technically wrapped from under the nose down while she bites into it.
  
  it smells like dark chocolate, but it doesn't taste like high quality dark chocolate. it's sort of bitter like dark chocolate and she waits for it to melt in her mouth, but it doesn't because it's something that's meant to survive intensive heat in traveling. she can taste a small tinge of sweet with it, since her sense of taste is a little dulled from the heavy use of heroin but she recognizes that even if she doesn't actually like the flavor of it, she hasn't eaten yet today (and only had half a big mac the day prior) and she's actually kind of starving (even if she doesn't feel too hungry since she's kind of beyond that). she tries to eat it slowly, not to savor the taste, but because through her own experiences, eating fast has ended up with her being sick. but she can't help taking bigger and bigger bites because she's just that hungry.
  
  he offers to take her home and says that she needs to trust him if he's going to get her home and she kind of wonders if home is really where she wants to be. home means her shitty drug dealer, her twin sister, her shitty mom's boyfriend, her shitty mom, and a shitty life. it also means sweet opiates to get high on and she has no idea if where they are even has opiates, which immediately makes her more than a little nervous because she's so hooked on heroin and she doesn't want to experience more than a week of withdrawal symptoms. at the same time, maybe it could be the best thing to ever happen to her. she holds the bar between her teeth and runs her fingers under her nose to wipe away snot that's starting to drip out since she has a perpetually runny nose.
  
  she winds up shaking her head 'no' after longer than generally accepted lengths of time to answer a question. she pulls the bar down from her mouth and back under the blankets again. the blankets slide down the rest of her face and land just below her neck. "n-no, n-not h-home," she squeaks out. her eyes have gone down from being the size of saucers and are now more focused on the wall behind him than him. she nibbles on the bar again as she tries to think about what to add to that in her brain that isn't so much swimming as it is drowning.
  
  "l-like a-as f-far a-away f-from n-new y-york a-as i-i c-can g-get," she says and she looks back up at him. "i-i d-don't c-care wh-where, j-just n-not n-north a-america."

[Halloqueen]

Peter is pretty slow socially (in all aspects that aren’t fighting or flirty) so it actually takes him a while to register the changes in Ripley’s behavior. She’s been a little jumpy since they met so its hard for him to notice the subtle switch between fearful and frightened. Of course Peter doesn’t think himself a bad guy, not too bad at least, so he doesn’t imagine that anything he does could be startling. He’s closed in like, with a selfish view of the world that expects people to respond him rather than the other way around. Basically, he never things about the consequences so he doesn’t think about how his foul mood might effect other people. But when he finally looks up at her he notices the difference.

He tries not watch her change but he does stare just a little bit because the pants hit her and then tumble to the ground and Ripley just stands there dumbly for a second. Great, Peter thinks to himself, she is absolutely brain damaged - he’s convinced now. It also doesn’t matter if Ripley was wearing a little bra with sock boobies because Peter helped her fix her collar bone and he would have figured it out any ways. He also isn’t really thinking about her boobs, sorry.

When he looks up she’s a thin post with big billowing pajama pants and a dropping sweater and it would be cute if Ripley wasn’t so rough around the edges. Aw hell, its a little cute. In the way a kid who tries to make breakfast but completely screws it up is cute. Except her eyes are watering and she trembles like a little wee dog and that’s not cute. Peter’s never gotten a kick out of scaring people or messing with them the way the rest of his Ravangers buddies do, so he feels a little bad about that. And he uses the term buddies lightly.

Peter’s lip quirk up a little bit because Ripley is pretty sweet name and, “Yeah, yeah, I remember those movies,” Peter refers to it as multiple movies because he also saw predator and that whole franchise is all miss-mashed together anyways. He was too young to reasonably see it but he remembers sneaking into the theater with his friends. He remembers crying really loud because it was a damn scary movie, and his baby sitter being three rows in front of him. And Peter cried more when she saw him because he didn’t want her to tattle, because Grandpa said mom needed to rest and he couldn’t get in trouble because it would upset her and make her more sick. It wound up being a good night because his baby sitter - cathy jaspers in the 10th grade, he can remember because she was cute even braces - felt so bad for him that she bought his twizzlers and drove him home in her dad’s truck and didn’t tattle. The memory of her empathy and compassion inspires a little bit of niceness inside Peter. Wow, he hasn’t thought too much about earth in a long time and now Ripley is making him feel all emotional.

“Those were real, did you know that?” Peter asks in the same quiet voice because he’s trying to be more calm because calm is good. Calm gets him places. “‘cept they’re actually really nice. Turns out they just like to meet new people - its just hard to say ‘hi’ when your mouth spews acid. Awkward, huh?” He only joking and he hopes she finds it funny. Or least he hopes it make her think of space as slightly less scary. Peter finds its a funny little story, anyways.

She looks cold and Peter feels really bad about that, so he gets up and crosses the little room. There’s a second bunk that folds down but he rarely uses it because either him or he’s convincing his company to share the bed. He tries to pull it down and its so stiff from disuse that he has to put on leg up on the wall for leverage as he yanks it down. It folds open eventually with a particularly nasty metallic screech, but it has a mattress and a pillow and thats really all Peter has to offer right now. “Look I’d love to get you back to earth and off my ship, but I’ve got a little errand to run first. I gotta stop off at a near-by planet and make a little ‘delivery’. Why don’t you sleep until then?” Peter doesn’t know if he’s tired but he figures she must be. He was pretty tuckered out when he first made it into space, although he had the double shock of loosing his mother AND earth in the same night. Still, must be draining, he thinks. 


PEter leaves with her that because she still has a food bar down there so he thinks she’ll be okay. A bed and food, and she said she just peed. Peter thinks that’s all anyone would need. Its a good thing he’s never had a pet before. But he has a nasty little orb burning a hole in his pocket and he needs to get rid of it before Yondu catches up. If he can get the units he stands of busting free and living his own life. Do whatever he wants, not running crummy jobs for a blue turd. He plays a little David Bowie over the ships speakers softly because Bowie is the slowest thing he has and its from earth, so maybe that’ll help Ripley calm down. Its certainly helping him.

ITs a couple hours later when Peter comes back down into the lower deck because they’ve landed on Xandar, and considering for once no one’s chasing him its actually pretty smooth landing. Its a lovely, law abiding planet with a ton of domestic nobodies all milling about, and Peter’s work here is pretty straight up and trouble free. Walk into a high class shop, walk out with a bucket of units. Easy-peasy. Plus its a humanoid planet thats not too shocking, so he thinks it a good idea to ask “You wanna go see some aliens?” because honestly, he doesn’t want to leave her alone on his ship.

[Halloqueen]

The Devil in Hell ✘ we're told was chained
✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿ A thousand years he there remained ✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿
He neither complained nor did he groan
But was determined to start a ๑ ๑ Hell ๑ ๑ of his own

/hy6Its actually lucky for Rocket that he doesnt sneer at Meela because Gracie wouldnt take well to that all. Being nasty to Meela means a straight up violent Gracie and that really isn't what they need right now, not with a corpsmen already thinking they're pathetically clueless criminals. Rocket tries to point out they wouldnt be here if he was really behind all the warrants and Gracae just rolls her eyes and snaps, "With that loud mouth, I bet the whole flarking quadrant would know," in a hushed voice. Grace doesn't really have any reason to trust him anyways.

Things get weird because apparently Rocket is really Subject 89pfg657something-or-other and the Centurion is becoming less and less frightening. And, well, thats not surprising, because he looks like he's barely old enough to be let out on duty all by himself. Grace is reluctant to keep talking because she doesn't want to dig herself any deeper but really Rocket? Calling him Bucket-head? Clearly Rocket's the d'ast idiot here.

And then its over. Its just over and the Centurion is leaving them alone and there isn't so much as a slap on the wrist for any of them. Gracie knows she should be grateful because that could have gone horribly for all of them, but it feels to good to be true. For some reason getting let go that actually sends shivers down her spine. Just how bad is this war getting? There's a second of silence were Gracie feels full on creeped out, and then it sinks in.

"Out post? OUT POST?!"

There's a small fight that breaks out between Rocket and Gracie after that, and groot winds up scolding them with a "I am Groot!" before he carefully nudges them over to opposite ends of the cockpit where they cant hurt each. Groot doesn't like when he friends hurt each other, and he likes Gracie so for now she counts too. Eventually Groot settles them down enough that Gracie gives up and storms back down into the engine hull where she doesn't have to put with Rocket calling her a flarking idiot. Which she can't stand because she did a better job of handling the Nova-Nerd than him.

Grace putters around the engine for a while so they can get a little speed and she can get off the damn ship sooner. But eventually that gets too hot and she feels to sweaty to enjoy her work. And she doesnt want to go get to gross because theyre stopping at an outpost and she certainly isn't going to try and shower while they're their. So instead she decides to work on the paneling. She doesn;t really need to because they're going to ditch the ship soon enough but she needs to do something because she's filled with furious rage at the way rocket treated her. So its tinker with the ship or throttle Rocket, and she picks the one that wont get her crushed by a giant tree.

She's floating on the roof trying to rewire the flood lights when she finds an extra bolt that shouldnt be necessary for the make and model of ship. So she tinkers with her just a little and find that it turns but doesn't loosen. She tugs a little to see if maybe its rusted, and an entire section of roof paneling comes loose. And because Gracie is curious she sticks her head in. ITs dark and musty and smells horrible, and she's about to turn around to grab a flash light when Meela goes darting into the small space. Grace can just make her out by the soft blue glow of her eyes - meaning she's excited as heck - and begrudgingly follows after her. She has to crawl but there's no way she's loosing Meela in the inner ship, especially if Nova's taking it soon.

She curses under her breath and calls for Meela to come back, and its so weird because Meela almost never runs off. "Meela, what in the d'ast -" Grace scolds as she gets up close to the squirrel, but her eyes slowly drift up and they can barely see in the dim blue light but she makes out a pair of empty eye sockets. The rest of the face slowly comes into focus and Grace slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming because that is a dead body. That is a half decomposed, flesh and bone dead body inches away from her face. Gracie knows its just a cargo ship with old, unsold cargo but its still disgusting as ********. So she grabs Meela and tries to shimmy back, but Meela is suspiciously heavy. Gracie tumbles out of the ceiling like a hot mess, sweating and shacking and gagging violently. It takes her ten minutes to calm down before she actually looks at the squirrel she's dragged out.

Meela's attached to a little black box with little tiny symbols carved into most of it. And since Meela's an idiot, she's trying to naw away on the box and pry it open, occasionally trying to nudge her tongue under the top of it. Grace spends the next little while trying to pry Meela off and its actually a big struggle, and Grace feels personally offended because Meela never misbehaves. When she finally gets the box separated she turns it over in her hands but can't find anything interesting about it. She certainly can't get it open. But she's just gone through the most gross experience ever to get it, and she's bitter about winding up face to face with a flarking crawlspace of dead bodies, so she keeps it. Grace tucks it into the bottom of the small duffle bag she carries with her, dumps her belt and her tools off in her tool box, and trots up stairs.

She slumps into the empty seat at the back and throws her feet up on the back of Groots chair again. Her arms fold tight over her chest because she feels nervous and slightly scared. PArtially from the chance she might get dropped off on an out post, but mostly from the ceiling full of bodies and the fact she's stealing from Rocket and Groot. "So what now?" Grace asks she watches the outpost approach through the windshield.

[ereht tuo si hturt eht]

xx
x

r o c k e t
tactical genius, weaponry expert, thug and the farthest thing from vermin.

• rocket's with her, that nova-nerd looked exactly like it was his first day on the job. (the thought that said nova is actually a real good centurion that has been a nova for two years doesn't even cross his mind because wow that guy looked like a new born kid, basically.) groot separates gracie and rocket and rocket doesn't do anything to fight against groot's wishes. he calls groot a d'ast idiot under his breath and groot just accepts it because despite being a tree, he's actually a very intelligent tree, and despite being limited to only three words in his entire vocabulary, he's one of the brightest and he understands a lot of things (perhaps he's missing from some normal social conventions, seeing as he's an ancient being) but he knows a lot of things.
  
  when gracie disappears to go work on the ship, rocket's content with that because it means he doesn't have to see her stupid face. it takes a while to get to the outpost, even though they're going at a blazing speed (it's still technically pretty slow considering their ship is damaged but compared to speeds on earth, it's blazing; they also manage to take a couple worm hole highways because otherwise the vast distances of space would be impossible to travel across and it's easy to conceive the notion that aliens more advanced than humans could find a way to make a wormhole stable enough to travel through). rocket is quiet, and groot winds up feeling a little uncomfortable because of just how quiet rocket is. sure, rocket isn't the biggest chatter in the universe, but he usually has something quippy or witty to say.
  
  rocket's deal is that he's concerned about the fact that they have a ship that was (is?????) used for trafficking and murder. again, rocket is a criminal with little to no morals but his morals include not submitting people to things they don't want to do that has a real bad effect on them -- like slavery or whatever, and killing people for no real reason. self-defense is okay. occasionally rocket finds his paws gripping one of the controls so tightly that groot as to reach over and prod him to remind him to ease up, lest the ship fall apart. rocket does ease up, but he doesn't say anything to groot about it and he certainly doesn't apologize.
  
  groot ends up saying his trademark, "i am groot," line.
  
  rocket responds with, "nah, i'm sure she's just fine up there fixin' the ship. after all, she gotta make sure we get to the flarkin' outpost." and that's the end of the conversation.
  
  to say that rocket isn't thinking about leaving gracie there on the outpost would be a total lie so big that not even rocket would dare to go there. he does think about it, and he fantasizes about it, but he comes to the conclusion that that is probably a bad idea because she presumably has no criminal record while him and groot do and therefore she could scream kidnap, rape, murder, torture, whatever and they'd listen to her over rocket and groot trying to defend themselves. it's because of this reasoning that rocket decides he's not going to ditch grace on the remote outpost in this quadrant (let it be known for the record that he really, really wants to). he tells groot that he's not going to ditch gracie and groot responds with a smile and his three words, to which rocket responds with, "quit smilin'."
  
  when grace emerges to the cockpit, rocket's face stays pretty neutral. he's had enough time to cool down (at least as much as a rocket raccoon can cool down). although, rocket cooling down essentially just means he's not going to yell, spit and slash or shoot at anyone (or, alternatively, blow up a moon). he doesn't spare her a glance, either. groot does spare her a glance and he also gives her a smile but he can't help but notice that she has a defensive posture going on and he can't figure out why. groot doesn't press it and he doesn't tell rocket, either, because in the end he concludes that it is most likely nothing.
  
  she asks what they're going to do now and groot responds with a resounding, "i am groot."
  
  "yeah, we're doing exactly what bucket head said we're going to do. we're gonna land at the outpost and get the ******** off this ship and into a different one that hopefully isn't tied to a bunch of murders and trafficking," rocket rolls his eyes and then it hits him and he perks upright and his whiskers jostle and his fur twitches because he has realized that bucket head only said that they wouldn't arrest them at the outpost if they ditched the ship there, he said nothing about making sure they could get another ride.
  
  rocket swears again and contemplates ditching the idea of leaving the ship behind, but again, he has a feeling that if he whizzes right on past it, they'll be chasing after him and he won't be able to plead ignorance or outrun them.
  
  at this point he looks back at grace, "we might need your fleshbags for somethin'," he hints, "i bet some of those xandarians at the outpost might think you're hot." he says this as he flies into the atmosphere before landing on solid ground that's pretty dusty and dark red. the body is actually a moon around a planet that's uninhabitable for complex life as it's a gas giant type of planet. this gas giant has an impressive magnetosphere that actually protects the moon inside of it. the moon is also large enough to maintain an atmosphere. tidal heating from the massive planet helps keep the ground seismically active, and even though it's pretty d'ast cold, it's warm enough to sustain life, even if it's not all beaches and water (the lakes there are at least half frozen during their 'summer' season). it's kind of a sad looking outpost, but rocket supposes that it will do. it's not exactly a bustling outpost, but it has enough corpsmen to look into rocket and groot's charge sheets, as well as a scrap yard for finding a ship that will run or putting together one that will run. it has a couple places to eat, which are pretty much just run down bars that serve mostly alcohol, have smelly, unisex bathrooms with more types of toilets than anyone from earth would care to think about, and serve food that's been freeze dried and then re-hydrated.
  
  the nova corpsmen that are on this moon, so casually dubbed as jc-672 (because xandarians are as clever at naming things as earthlings are), have been given instruction to process groot, rocket and grace to make sure that they don't have anything illegal on them. groot and grace wind up getting away with their stuff, but ninety percent of rocket's hardware winds up getting confiscated because they deem it unsafe for most life to be around. rocket groans a lot, rolls his eyes and then throws his paws up when all he's left with are two pistols that probably are less effective than a bb gun that's been broken in half. the corpsmen let rocket, grace and groot go because richard called in to let them know that they should let them go. (nova prime is under the assumption that they're going to take in the three, uh, things that are flying the ship, but richard fails to mention the beings on the ship because he actually has a nagging suspicion that something is wrong with nova prime.)
  
  rocket is generally an a*****e, but he's not exactly a sexist a*****e (just a general a*****e) and so the only reason he's suggested that grace use her body so they can get off this shithole is because he doesn't know if she has any other talents aside from fixing things (which, he presumes would take way too much time to try and wait for). the three of them are left standing there and rocket's getting dust in his feet, but he doesn't actually mind in the slightest. they're already starting to pull apart the ship after the three of them have been processed. rocket kind of glances at the ship, but he doesn't feel too attached to it.
  
  "i need a drink," he murmurs, and he hopes to whatever deity might be out there that the bartender will think he's adorable as all hell and give him free drinks. he figures that they should probably avoid trouble for the time being and so rocket decides that he'll behave himself. for the time being. "you wanna look at their junkyard for something we can use?" he asks grace, and he even sounds like he's asking it as a question rather than making a statement. "because i got this feeling that we aren't gonna be able to just steal our way out of here."

[ereht tuo si hturt eht]

xx
x

r i p l e y x i l t c h e n k o - k o n e v a
expert hacker and grunge fashionista and (straight up gnarly as ********) junkie.

• passing her two more bars of the protein not-so-goodness is a sign that she can maybe lighten up towards him. there are two sides sort of arguing in her head. one side is screaming that he's a man and therefore he's a shitty person and is probably going to beat her up, rape her, attempt to kill her or do whatever to her. the other side is pointing out that he hasn't done any of that so far and he's had the perfect chances to do so, and he hasn't just thrown her out, he's actually gone so far as to take care of her and feed her and this side makes her feel strangely attached to him. it's the side that winds up winning, though she still keeps her defenses up by staying in the blanket because she still likes the feeling of being safe. as much as she's suddenly attached to him and as much as she already trusts him, there's the thing about how she's just in her t-shirt and underwear and she really hates her body a lot even if her five hundred thousand million tattoos are rad as ******** and her legs are covered with super rad ones. and while her legs aren't completely off limits like her breasts are, it's still enough that she wants to hide it. also her shins are super bruised up. actually every part of her is covered in bruises. she's sort of one giant bruise.
  
  when he passes her the two bars, she starts eating the first one and knows that in a good fifteen minutes she's probably going to regret it because she will probably throw it up, but for right now she's content to scarf it down. halfway through the first bar, she stops though, because he says something ridiculous and weird. for a moment, she's silent and she actually breaks into a bit of a smile, but it's not like one of those sincere smiles -- instead it's one of those, 'you're just ********' around with me' smiles, like she knows better than to believe him. but he has that dopey smile on his face and it's not faltering and for some reason it makes her feel weird on her insides (not in the 'oh he's so hot way' because she doesn't think he's that hot since she doesn't really find too many people attractive anymore unless they're women). the 'i know you're just ********' with me' smile starts to fade into a look of confusion and she's suddenly filled with a bunch of extra strength because she needs to know if he's ******** with her or if he's telling the truth.
  
  so she suddenly bolts upright, out of the blanket cocoon and strides past peter and up the sharp steps to the cockpit of the milano. she moves with surprising speed and even more surprising, a bit of grace. she doesn't actually stumble or trip this time, which is probably the closest thing to a miracle that has ever occurred to her. she moves the fastest she's moved in a couple years and just climbing up the short set of stairs that fast makes her heart beat harder than normal (yeah, she's that out of shape).
  
  and then she's greeted with it. there's no boat deck up the stairs. there's just a big windshield and a bunch of dark with a bunch of sparkling dots of the red, blue and white variety (symbolizing different stars of different sizes and in different phases of their life). she can see blurry fuzz of a cloud that looks a lot like something one would see with the milky way on earth -- a blurry fuzz of jillions trillions billions kazillions of stars, except it's a whole different galaxy, and it's close to the galaxy they're in now.
  
  ripley blinks because holy ********, this isn't earth. they're not even on solid ******** ground. they're just in space. and it's beautiful and ******** this isn't earth. this unleashes a real big tsunami of emotions in her.
  
  oh god, it's not earth. it's not familiar.
  
  oh thank god! it's not earth! it's so far away from all the s**t!
  
  oh god, it's not earth -- where's she gonna get high now?
  
  oh thank god! it's not earth! people out here have gotta be better than those on earth!
  
  she looks behind her and peter's there, but he's not standing too close (which she really appreciates). "y-you -- y-you w-weren't ********' w-with m-me?" it's a question that she already knows the answer to even though she's phrased it to sound like a question with her tone of voice. "s-space?" she turns to look out the windshield again and then takes a couple steps forward because she needs to sit down. she plops into the shotgun seat and stares straight ahead like she's about to go into a coma or something.
  
  "h-how'd -- wh-what?" but it's not fear, it's just some goddamn good old fashioned confusion.
  
  she pauses, furrows her eyebrows and purses her lips before saying, "y-you're n-not a-a b-boat p-pilot th-then."
  
  she's quiet for a couple more seconds.
  
  "d-does th-this m-make m-me a-an a-astronaut?"

[Halloqueen]

Peter doesn’t find it weird that maybe Ripley wants to save one of the bars for later. He can understand the upsides to rationing. He does find it a little strange that she stays locked away behind the blankets but hey, he can understand that too. He remembers it was a pretty good defense against monsters when he was growing up. He wants to push forward to deal with the fact that there is a very weird girl on his ship but he sort of gets the feeling thats not going to work. Peter leans back on his butt and folds his arms around his knees because he sort of figures the only thing he can do now is just wait for Ripley to move her own pace.

He sees the mild panic set in on her face and for a second his lips twitch into a slightly smirk. Good. He wants to scare her. Not scare her scare her, just scare her enough that she actually wants go back home. Or anywhere that isn’t on his ship and is somewhere he isn’t responsible for her. Peter’s an okay guy underneath it all but that doesn’t mean he wants some beat up child-adult thing. He’s not a saint or anything. But quickly turns into a look of dread and “HEY, HEY, HEY!” because she’s darting past him into the cockpit.

Peter’s actually kind of impressed with how quickly she can move. Maybe a little worried about her going too fast and hurting her self, but she darts right past him before he can grab her. Its a miracle her tiny little legs just don’t completely give out on her. Peter is much less graceful as he scampers up the later on all fours after her. A lot of his stuff is terran and vintage and irreplaceable, meaning he really doesn’t want Ripley breaking anything. He might just jettison her off his ship if she breaks anything.

He’s about to scold her and grab by the arm to drag her back down (even though thats a horrible idea he just isnt aware of yet) because there is a lot of expensive equipment in the cockpit and hitting the wrong button could literally kill them. The only thing that stops them is the look on Ripley’s face. He recognizes that look and remembers his first time in space - the first time looking out into the night sky through a thin windshield and realizing that you’re inside of it all and there’s nothing but an endless vacuum under your feet. So Peter stands back and lets the silence hang in the air for a little while.

“No, technically not,” Peter answers when Ripley starts to ask questions and he feels a little relieved because maybe they move to getting her off his ship now, “I’m Star-Lord, I’m a legendary outlaw, and I’m the pilot of this space craft.” He’s still got a big smirk on his face because he likes making himself sound more impressive than he actually is.

His nose scrunches up a little bit because Ripley asks if she’s an astronaut and Peter blows a big raspberry with his lips, “No!” He scoffs, waving a hand because he actually really respected astronauts growing up and he wont have them belittled. “You’re a stow away is what you are! And so if you’d kindly step back down stairs and settle in, we can hurry up and get you back to earth before you get eaten out here.” Peter steps aside and gestures towards the stairs with his arms straight out, like he’s an old school theatre usher. There’s also a big impatient smile on his face because things are never as easy as he wants them to be.

[Halloqueen]

The Devil in Hell ✘ we're told was chained
✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿ A thousand years he there remained ✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿
He neither complained nor did he groan
But was determined to start a ๑ ๑ Hell ๑ ๑ of his own

Gracie is super happy to get ride of the ship when they land. She doesn’t care that the outpost is cold and that she can’t tell if ash or snow swirling around on the ground. Its better than that ship and those sunken faces staring back at her and that smell. So even though she’s glad to never set foot on that again, she’s still incredibly tense as she gathers up her things and disembarks. They couldn’t really be murders and traffickers, could they?

Gracie takes a little solace that if they were, they’d probably take better care of their cargo.


That, and the fact that Rocket is that only employer who hasn’t tried to screw her over or get something for free, is the only reason she wants to stay. She could probably get another ride with someone else, but that’s taking a gamble that they’ll be less handsy than Rocket. Which is a chance of 0:1. Its pathetic, but Rocket and Groot are the really the best options she has right now. At least until they reach a warmer planet.

Gracie is scrambling for ways to convince Rocket to let her keep her ‘job‘ when they land, so she nearly trips over herself when Rocket suggests she might be useful. She isn’t even insulted when he says they’ll keep her for flesh bags because heck, that’s what Gracie uses them for anyways. She sort of stares at Rocket with big pink eyes as they head into the shelter of a near by bar and Gracie cant remember the last time she caught a break like this. Not arrested and not ditched at an outpost, all in the same day. Wow-wee its good to be Gracie.


They get a table at the bar and its the kind that wobbles back and forth. Its not tall enough for Groot either so he sits down right on the floor and tries to take up as little space as possible because he’s polite and also doesn’t want to start fights by accidentally elbowing any of the other patrons. Gracie has some extra units saved up, because occasionally she does take paying work, and she orders them a round of drinks. Rocket gets a beer, Groot gets a mop bucket of suspect water (but water none the less) and Gracie downs a shot of what is supposed to be a good distilled liqueur but she really doubts it. She shakes her head to get ride of the taste and then rolls her eyes at Rocket because he expects her to work with something from a junk-yard. “You two stay out of trouble, and meet me on the other side of the outpost in a hour.”

“I am Groot!”

Gracie ignores Groot’s protest that Rocket isn’t that badly behaved all the time and slips away from the table. Normally she’d hit up a gas station because people of class that she’d want to target wouldn’t stop on a crappy outpost like this unless it was just for gas. But this is planet who’s population is 75% Nova, so up and stealing a ship is a horrible idea. One near arrest is enough for Gracie. Except that gives her an idea. Instead of the junk year she saunters her way over to the Nova impound lot.

She spots a tall blonde women in Nova uniform who gives her the once over when she enters and thats all the initiation Gracie needs. She drums up a conversation and makes up some sob story about being stranded and needing a vehicle so she can go tow her wrecked one. And maybe go pick up her motel keys, if you know what I mean, wink-wonk. Its a slow day with no one around and Nova don’t exactly get a lot action, so Gracie walks out a half hour later with a shiny new pair of keys.

Gracie lands her fancy new ship at the other end of the out post and waits for Rocket and Groot. When they show up she opens the door and leans out with a s**t eating grin. “You gonna stop making fun of my flesh bags now, huh Rocket?” She chirps because she’s actually really proud of being able to leverage her body for goods and services. And stealing ships from Nova Corps. Plus its a pretty decent ship that got seized because the driver didnt have insurance. Its not the fastest ship but its not falling apart like the last one, but it has a decent living quarters for four regular sized people and auto-polite and a few low level weapons probably used more for wild life than actual self defense. It might need new plates so they dont get caught, but it should get them where they’re going. Wherever that is...

[ereht tuo si hturt eht]

xx
x

r o c k e t
tactical genius, weaponry expert, thug and the farthest thing from vermin.

• in rocket's defense, he suspects that if she's as good of a mechanic as she thinks she is, she can probably manage to make something work out of a pile of dirt and a sock with ejaculate in it. and maybe a little metal and something to get some energy into an engine-like thing. actually, all they would technically need is something to act as a sail so that the solar wind can hit it and move them along. it might be slow, but it would work. he rolls his eyes as grace tells them to not get into any trouble and rocket wonders how much trouble he can get into when he doesn't have enough units to get himself good and drunk. he stares at groot when groot suggests that rocket is more well-behaved than he comes off and as a result, he makes himself a skewed up face that suggests he's about to say, 'really, groot?' in the end, he doesn't say this because he is aware that groot is the only friend he's got and the only, uh, thing (tree?) that would ever stand up for him. the thought quickly passes and rocket waves a paw off like it doesn't bother him (it doesn't bother him, actually, at least on the surface but maybe somewhere really deep down like colon deep it might make him depressed).
  
  rocket savors the single beer that he's got since he knows that there's no way in the abyss that he's going to be able to get a second one. the bartender is greedier than the greediest bounty hunter and doesn't like giving anything away for cheap. rocket's puppy dog eyes won't work on him. as their hour goes by, rocket and groot only talk a little bit because rocket is busy being angry and staring over the rim of his glass. right now he doesn't care that the beer is disgusting because it washes out the disgusting taste that bucket head left behind in his mouth.
  
  grace gets there about ten minutes before rocket and groot do. rocket is sitting on groot's shoulder and he doesn't think that that takes away any dignity from him. groot looks content when he sees grace has managed to get her hands on a ship, and not only a ship that works but a ship that looks like it's big enough to comfortably fit the three of them. this makes groot smile and rocket skitters down groot's arm and lands on his feet on the ground.
  
  grace's words roll right over rocket's head, but he still hears them and he waves a paw dismissively because so what if her flesh bags managed to get them a ship that actually works? rocket looks the ship up and down and does his best to find something, anything wrong with it. unfortunately (for rocket and fortunate for quite literally anyone and everyone else) there's nothing actually wrong with it. rocket is petty in that he doesn't want to admit that she's done a good job (not because she's of the feminine type of her species, but because he just doesn't like her). he harrumphs and scowls before spitting on the ground because that's as close as grace is going to get for a job well done.
  
  "sure, fine, whatever," rocket muses as he walks up the ramp past grace, making full well and sure that he doesn't brush up against her. "what, you want to get rewarded like some sort of a*****e?" he asks a bit callously, because he has nothing to give her and he probably wouldn't give her much of anything in this situation right now even if he had something. he's just displeased that she managed to one-up him. he makes his way into the cockpit, and the system looks just fine and dandy. it's not super new and fancy, but it's definitely new enough to not be considered ancient, or even outdated. "i don't even want to know what you did to get this," rocket says, even though he has an idea as to how she got it and it involves her either on her back or on top (he kind of doesn't think there was a lady nova out here).
  
  without asking grace if she wants to be the one to pilot it, he settles down in the pilot's seat and finds out that, holy moly, it has flarking auto-pilot. this is actually a celestialsend because it means that he can take a nap whenever he so desires.
  
  groot looks at grace and gives her a big smile, a big whatever-kind-of-teeth-or-not-teeth groot has kind of smile. "i am groot!" he says because he's more than thrilled with this. he immediately sees this as a step forward -- there's a small weapons system, small shield system, plenty of room, and something that will actively warn them if other ships or bodies of whatever come near by, whether it be a comet, meteor or space craft.
  
  it doesn't take rocket too long to figure out how to get this ship to work and before long they're lifting up into the atmosphere, then out of the atmosphere, and finally out of the gravitational pull of the planet.
  
  they still need to figure out where they're going to go and rocket tries to think over -- where can they go. and then it hits him. they definitely need to find a way to get some flarking units. "we're going to abalone," not said like the earth abalone, but rather like abba-lone. it's a planet just outside of xandarian territory and is notorious for people who have bounties and jobs they want done, things gathered and so on and so forth (and while rocket won't take jobs that require him to bring back dead bodies, since he already has enough of a rap sheet on his head, he'll gladly take the ones that require bringing the target back alive).
  
  "take some jobs so we don't have to rely on idiots who think grace is attractive enough to want to ******** with," he glances at grace, leaning forward and tilting his head so that he can peer at her from his captain's seat.

[ereht tuo si hturt eht]

xx
x

r i p l e y x i l t c h e n k o - k o n e v a
expert hacker and grunge fashionista and (straight up gnarly as ********) junkie.

• she's kind of offended that he says she's not an astronaut and this manifests itself on her face as a big pout and creases on her forehead between her eyebrows when she scrunches them together. he's still nice enough to give her food and make sure she doesn't die, but she doesn't appreciate being told that she's not worthy enough of being an astronaut (even though she actually thinks she isn't worthy enough -- she doesn't want other people to think it, it's complicated). she wouldn't mind being an astronaut -- in fact, the one subject she remembers liking in middle school had been astronomy and she wanted to take astronomy in high school but she dropped out before she could have taken it. she glossed over astronomy related things occasionally, at least when she wasn't teaching herself things dealing with computers and other sorts of technology. of course, all of this was learned prior to becoming so far fried out of her mind from heroin that she can't even tell time the right way and so she's probably forgotten some or most of the information she learned at some point. the only reason the whole ability to hack and whatnot is still there is because she did it so much that it's sort of ingrained in her like an automatic response.
  
  she's more concerned about him calling her a stow away than the fact that he's introduced himself as star-prince or whatever because star-prince is so dumb. "h-how c-can i-i b-be a-a s-stow a-away?" she asks, getting a little defensive, but not getting angry, and even if she had gotten angry from it she would have sounded more pathetic and whiny than angry. "i-i j-just g-got h-here!" she scratches her forehead a bit, and has to really press down to get her nails to scrape against the skin since they're bitten so short. but she's used to the insults. she used to them and so even though they bother her, she can pretend like they don't because she's been insulted her entire life.
  
  she stops scratching her forehead and moves to run her finger under her nose. he suggests they go back down into the bunker of the ship and she isn't going to argue. if she does something wrong, he might just throw her out into space without any kind of protection for her to survive. ripley sucks on the inside of her mouth (you know when you press your tongue up against the top of your mouth and your lips sort of get suctioned to your teeth?) and starts to head down the stairs, moving significantly slower than she had right after he told her that she wa-- is in space. her hand stays up near her face and she starts chewing on her cuticles and the tips of her fingers a bit, even though they're already really raw.
  
  when she gets back down in the bunker, she's still focusing more on herself than her surroundings, but she's seen enough to conclude that whoever this space-prince guy is, he is clearly either an earthophile and an eighties-ophile or something weird. she can't imagine why the ******** he'd be into the eighties since she's pretty sure the eighties sucked (but so did the nineties and the two-thousands and the two-thousand-tens). "s-so, s-space-p-prince?" she asks, finally dropping her hand, wiping the saliva that soaked into her skin off on her shirt. "wh-what a-are y-you a-a p-prince o-of?" because galaxy-man, that's just such a dumb name.
  
  she's not sure what she should do now, should she sit on the floor or bed or what? she honestly has no idea what the ******** she's supposed to do or what she's doing and so she winds up staring at her gross feet, thinking of what she should do. she stands there awkwardly with her shoulders relaxed even though she wants to hunch them up but can't because of the whole having a broken bone thing.

[Halloqueen]

Although Peter and Ripley are sort of bantering and arguing and Peter REALLY wants to be ride of her, there’s a strange chemistry between him. Its probably because they’re both actually children parading around as adults. So while Peter is angry with his situation and very agitated about everything, he isn’t violently angry or anything like that. Plus Ripley doesn’t make for much a threat. She’s creepy, but not threatening. He conveniently forgets to mention that he isn’t worthy of being an astronaut either and is just plain too much of an a*****e to make it through NASA. She doesn’t need to know any of that. Peter might be more impressed with her and less hostile if he knew she dug space and was a computer genius, but he doesn’t know that either. These two have so much to learn.

“How the hell should I know?” Peter shouts in frustration as he stamps down the stairs after her. He doesn’t mean to be belligerent but he’s wound up and Peter Quill isn’t a sit-still sort of person even on the best of days. “All I know is I’m having a great time with twins and then you show up on my ship! I don’t care how you got here, you are now, officially, a stow away.” He runs his hands through his hair and ruffles it all up because wow, this is still annoying. He should just kick her out, wow, he really wants to do that but dammit. Poor thing’s lost in space.

Peter plops himself down on the end of the bunk when she doens’t take it. He’s not going to entice her to sit or anything, she can do whatever she wants as long as she doesn’t break anything. He spreads his knees wide and lets his head drop down between them because its swimming and aching now. He groans and stays there a while, waving his hands and snapping “Stop that,”because he assumes she’s still scratching all over her skin. Technically she’s moved onto chewing her nails by that point but that counts.

There’s an annoyed hum coming from Peter for several moments before he finally snaps his head up. “Star, no Star-Lord. Lord. Its a code name ‘cause I’m an outlaw - are you even listening?” This time Peter is testy because no one ever gets his code name its really frustrating. Because to Peter is represents everything worthy of him because his mom called him that and dammit, he wants to be Star-Lord. Peter Quill is such an a*****e. He sighs and rolls his eyes and holds his hand up because he just can’t right now, “You know what, forget it!”

Peter winds up staring at Ripley for a while because frankly, she’s strange looking. If she was an alien he could get over it, but the fact that she’s human makes him stare because she doesn’t look right for a human. But he also notices she’s not wearing pants. Not in a sexual way, just in a wow-that-looks-chilly kind of way. Peter twists in his seat and pulls a drawer out of the wall and starts to rummage through it. He doesn’t think he’ll have anything that will fit her but he’s also not big on sharing blankets. He finds a pair of pj pants with a draw string waist that he thinks might tighten enough to at least not fall down on her. She can roll up the legs, too. “Here, put those on, and be careful not trip,” Peter tosses her the soft pants, and he’s serious because he doesn’t want her to reinjure her collar bone and therefore make him treat again. He doubts he can get that close again.

There’s a long tirade of empty silence because Peter doesn’t really know what to say. He’s not sure if he wants to know anything about her because that could be a slipper slope. But at the same time he can’t stand the heavy silence between them that reminds him too much of hospital waiting rooms and bed side chairs. “You never told me your name,” Peter points out finally, his tone much softer and quieter now because he’s starting to give into the situation.

[Halloqueen]

The Devil in Hell ✘ we're told was chained
✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿ A thousand years he there remained ✿✿✿✿ ✿✿✿✿
He neither complained nor did he groan
But was determined to start a ๑ ๑ Hell ๑ ๑ of his own

If Rocket think Gracie is going to travel in something that’s basically a tin can with a solar sail, then he’s crazy. Gracie might not be much, but she likes classy things in life and has gotten pretty good at getting what she wants. And she wants a decent ship, dang it. And a decent bed, which she has claimed by letting Meela climb onto the pillow and fall asleep. Being around Rocket and Gracie squabbling all the time is taking its toll on her.

Grace is smirking and hanging out of the door, one hand on the door frame so she can literally hang out, because Rocket is sort of cute when he approaches on Groot’s shoulders. Gracie has a weak spot for rodents and its almost enough to make her sort of like him as scuttles around. Her grin just gets bigger as Rocket does a lap around the ship and she narrates for him, “Double plasma engines, solar treated paneling, in-flight navigation and piloting systems, amazing fuel economy aaandd leather interior.” Gracie purrs it at him because she’s damn proud of a good’s day work and the ache in her jaw is totally worth it for a ship with actually beds. They’ll still need to pick up food and other necessities but she’s no God and its a start. 

Gracie’s face screws up in disgusted and she steps back slightly because did he just spit? Disgusting, so very disgusting. She gives Groot a look that’s clearly asking if he saw it too and she assumes it would bother him but Groot keeps on smiling dumbly because wow - a ship he fits in. He stomps inside and just stands, amazed that his head doesn’t smack against the ceiling and he won’t cramp up after days and days of travel. Grace lets out a very long sigh because that smile is the only reward she gets. She doesn’t except to be rewarded with anything physical because she knows Rocket doesn’t have anything to give her, but a thank you would be nice. She scoffs as she enters the ship and closes the door, which gives a satisfying whoosh that promises a working airlock and a secure ship.

“I’ll give you three guess to figure out how I got it,” Grace says with a wink and Groot takes a guess,

“I am Groot?”

Gracie clicks her tongue against her cheek and points a finger in a pretend gun shape at Groot, “Always knew you were the brains,” she murmurs as she watches Rocket take off. Groot settles into the back and prods Meela gentle with a twiggy finger. Meela stirs, sniffs at Groot, and then starts climbing up his arm and nibbling away dead bark from his barky skin because Meela is a rodent and likes to chew on things. Its the start of beautiful friendship.


Grace and Rocket are less friendly because Grace made the stupid decision to open her mouth and ask “Hey, how come you get to drive?” which opens up a whole new debate. Gracie demands to drive because she’s a damn mechanic and knows more about ships that Rocket ever could, and Rocket counters that he’s a sneaky little criminal and is better at avoiding obstacles and knows all the safest routes to where they going. It turns into childish bickering and ends with Gracie pouting in the co-polite chair, sitting sideways so she can kick at Rocket’s chair occasionally because he’s being a furry butt. She knows Rocket isn’t sexist but he’s still an a*****e. 

“Hey!” Gracie snaps when Rocket insults people who want to sleep with her, and his seat gets an extra hard kick. “Those idiots got us this ship. And trust me, idiots thinking im attractive enough to ‘******** with’ are a very reliable source of income. Right, Groot?”

“I am Groot,”

“Thank you,” Grace says as she crosses her arms over her nice chest and sits back. But then she jumps forward and sits up properly because holy flark - abalone! She’s been to worse but still, abalone is bad. Its filled with people who are fueled with anger and revenge, which leads to some awful behavior even Grace won’t stoop too. Not to mention that Gracie isn’t too heavily armed and its not a great planet for an attractive member of any species to be. Grace hums nervously while they land and jeepers, does their ship look out of place on the planet. Her skin goes from lush green to pale mint. There are Ravangers and thugs every where and Grace is suddenly aware that she is very useless all of a sudden. Their ship is working perfectly and there isn’t anyone here she feels comfortable sleeping with. Crap.

“So, uh,” Grace starts, trembling in her seat and sinking down because she really doesn’t want to be dropped off here. Technically its not inhabitable because she’ll probably be dead after three days. She tries to speak but its tricky because her throat feels painfully tight and the equivalent of her heart hammers in her chest. “I can, uh, just wait in the ship right? Keep ‘er idly or whatever?” She gives a nervous laugh because she still doesn’t know much about Rocket but he doesn’t seem to like her very much so it seems like a very reasonable idea that he’s going to kick her out. For a second Grace thinks about just demanding they leave and she gets to keep the ship (she earned it, after all) but she only trusts herself to be able to take Rocket. Groot is just too damn big. Flark, flark, and double flark.

[ereht tuo si hturt eht]

xx
x

r o c k e t
tactical genius, weaponry expert, thug and the farthest thing from vermin.

• groot is so proud of himself that he got it. when gracie gives the click of her tongue and the little gunpoint of her fingers, groot just smiles even bigger (if it's possible). had rocket seen this smile, he would have scolded him for not being a professional (even though rocket knows he's about as far away from professional as it gets). the arguing between rocket and grace continues, even after groot's gotten it right as to how she managed to get such a good ship. rocket just shrugs in response because, quite frankly, he isn't that surprised that someone would sleep with her. he's just surprised that she managed to get a ship with all of the qualities that she listed off, especially the double plasma engines because those things are kind of, actually, pretty high value. which gives rocket an idea -- if they can't pick up a job on abalone, they can maybe sell one of their engines.
  
  grace talks to groot again and rocket gives him a brief glare before going, "hey, who's side are you on, anyways?" because rocket is a stubborn bugger that doesn't want to admit that grace is right and that she managed to get them out of that s**t hole of a nova outpost.
  
  while they argue and bicker and banter ninety percent of the time they talk, rocket does manage to make at least one statement not so vile sounding. "so, you get the double plasma engines on purpose or was that just some pure, dumb luck?" because he's (though he won't admit it out loud) impressed with that. "might come in handy, sell one if we get stuck between a rock and a hard place," and he kind of foresees this happening because lately, him and groot have been real down on their luck.
  
  groot notices the change in gracie's face and becomes a little worried because he knows that a change in skin tone can mean a couple things. he worries because she is his friend, and he worries that she might be coming down with something considering she had what might have been unprotected sex with a nova corps officer. "i am groot?" he asks her as she slinks down in her chair because she doesn't look as ready steady go get 'em as she has prior. she suddenly seems more timid and shy and even scared.
  
  rocket ignores groot's question to grace about whether or not she's okay, because while he does care whether or not she's okay (for the reason of her being able to handle herself if slash when things go wrong), he also has other things that he's worried about on top of that. he notices that she's looking a little less spunky than usual and her usage of 'uhs' makes him think that she's suddenly not confident in what she has to say (which is pretty new to him since she seems pretty damn confident in everything she says). and while he's an a*****e who doesn't actually have a heart of gold and while his heart is still three sizes too small, he respects her wish to stay aboard the ship and keep it idle because that's actually an excellent idea since abalone is, like grace has thought, a planet of ravagers and thugs and a whole bunch of people who get angry on a whim.
  
  rocket actually has no intention on leaving her there, because she's proven herself useful with her flesh bags and him and groot don't have enough units to get by on their own, yet. therefore, they will need her ability to get free flarking ships after thirty minutes of jaw breaking exercise. he stands from the seat and makes his way to the end of the cockpit, walking ahead of groot who's lingering behind with gracie and contemplating resting a branchy hand on her shoulder.
  
  "i am groot," he says in a nudging sort of way, because he can't tell whether or not rocket is going to ignore her or what and he thinks that he shouldn't ignore gracie because keeping the ship idle is a really smart idea - and groot is more than okay with having gracie be the one keeping it idle since she seems to be very uncomfortable on abalone.
  
  rocket turns and faces the two of them again and wow grace is a different color of green. she's sort of like a pale green instead of a rich green and it's kind of gross. he sighs and rolls his eyes, pretending that this is more of a drain on him than it really is. "yeah, yeah, keep the ship idle. don't let none of them d'ast idiots on board, never know what the flark they're going to steal from us," and rocket doesn't want to actually lose units from having come here. even though this is his kind of crowd and his kind of people (most are less walking, talking rodents and more tentacles, slime, goo, giants, and so on and so forth), he doesn't want to spend more time than he has to on abalone. this is sort of like a last resort planet to head to.
  
  while it was, at one point, a beautiful planet, it has since been trashed. it's small, and crowded and pretty close to lawless. there are some unspoken rules around there - don't ******** with kids or teens or whatever, don't kill someone's domesticated pet and don't steal from old people unless they're really asking for it. the ground is pastel purple with orange flecks, but it's all dirt. the earth equivalent of trees have all been cut down and the atmosphere is artificially generated since the planet has no plate tectonics to speak of to help generate a healthy atmosphere. there are caps of ice at the poles, but they rarely melt and in order to get water to the main cities of the planet abalone, the residents must fly up to the caps and collect the ice in massive quantities and bring them back -- this happens on a bi-weekly basis.
  
  "i am groot," groot points out again, because it might be beneficial to be able to communicate with one another, considering the planet is pretty much devoid of people who have a heart for anything other than selfish desires.
  
  rocket's whiskers twitch and he nods, "all right, all right," he turns back around and makes his way to the control panel. "you manage to get any comlinks while you were getting our gear?" he almost says sleazing around, but even he's not that mean, especially considering she did all the work to get them their ride. "might need it in case s**t goes sour so we can be in the air the second we're on board, or you can pick us up," he makes sure he doesn't say 'rescue us' because rocket raccoon and groot never need rescuing.

[ereht tuo si hturt eht]

xx
x

r i p l e y x d i c k e r m a n - d u f e n d o r f
expert hacker and grunge fashionista and (straight up gnarly as ********) junkie.

• when peter gets obviously irritated with her and snaps at her and gets testy, she automatically starts to feel bad. not bad as in a 'i probably shouldn't have done that, i should apologize' way, but in a devastated, terrified, heartbroken and generally way too much of an overreaction kind of way. he tells her to 'stop that' and it takes her a couple seconds to realize that he's talking about her biting her cuticles and skin and so she does. and she tries to busy her hands that normally pick at herself by tapping her index finger against her middle finger, ring finger and pinky finger in a repetitive manner. her eyes are watering now because she's legitimately upset that she's managed to upset peter this much, especially since he's one of the only people that she's met in her miserable life that's at least pretended to give a s**t. (she knows he doesn't really give a s**t, but there's a nice illusion that he does when he gave her food and now throwing pajama bottoms at her.)
  
  she doesn't catch them because she doesn't see him tossing them. it's not till the fabric is against her skin and she's told to put them on and not trip that she realizes he's giving her something for her legs. it's cold, but it's warmer than her apartment was and so she's riding that sort of temporary ability to survive temperatures that might be uncomfortable for people used to that climate but are comfortable to her because of relative temperatures and whatnot. when she sees them at her feet, she bends over and steps one leg into one side and another in the other side. she doesn't have them on backwards, amazingly. she also doesn't need to roll up the legs because she has sort of freakishly long legs and she's an inch shorter than peter. she does tie them so that they fit and won't fall down. they sink low on her hips, but her shirt is long enough to cover that up. she wishes she had something to hide her arms in because she's actually very embarrassed about all the sores and whatnot. she also wishes she had been wearing a bra with a bunch of stuffing in it so that she could at least pretend to have boobs instead of a sternum that sticks out more than her tits (okay, not really, but it's really close).
  
  "s-star-l-lord," she repeats, still looking down because she has no idea what she's supposed to be doing. her heels are starting to hurt and so she winds up just sitting down and folding her legs so that her feet can get tucked in the crooks behind her bent knees for warmth. maybe repeating his code name (which is still lame, to have a code name, not it being star-lord) she can appease him and make him less angry. of course, she only says this seconds after he's asked her what her name is and after the unsettling silence. her teeth start to chew on the inside of her mouth that's already pretty raw, but she's nervous. nervous and scared.
  
  finally she looks back up at him when she realizes that he's asked for her name and not his name. there's no point in lying to him about her name because they're in space and they probably don't have the same kind of internet or whatever connection that earth does and therefore they can't find the really grody stuff with her. (and it's there and it's sick and it's also, uh, very illegal if you get my drift.) for some reason, she doesn't think he actually cares about her name, but his voice is softer than when he snapped earlier and that makes her a bit more comfortable and at ease. although, she still looks like every little bit of her is tensed up and ready to take a hit (not that she'd survive a hit) and her face still looks a bit scared (but she probably just sort of looks perpetually scared).
  
  "u-uh," she swallows hard and drops her hand that was pressing her cheek into her teeth into her lap and rubs her knee. "r-ripley," she says, and aside from her freckles that dot on her face, it's the only thing about her that she really, really likes (like, in a physical manner, because she loves that she can hack and whatnot). "i-it's a-also f-from th-this m-movie," she doesn't know how long peter has been in space or if he's even human, so she presumes that he has no idea what she's going to talk about, "c-called a-alien. i-it h-has k-killer a-aliens w-with l-like a-acidic b-blood th-that o-oozes th-through f-floors a-and a-also e-extra m-mouths i-inside th-their m-mouths. th-the h-hero i-is n-named r-ripley. e-ellen r-ripley." she raises her hand to her mouth again and she's about to bite at her skin.
  
  but she stops.
  
  star-lord said to stop.