#every inch

The ghost of a smile tips one corner of your mouth. You cross the threshold and set down the basket as the door swishes shut behind you. The apartment-air smells rich and warm — like candied sweet potatoes with cinnamon, and some kind of curried meat.

“Oh, goddammit,” you mutter, spotting bioplastic cartons of orloni with sauce and yaro-root pastries on the little table-for-two that Rocket had salvaged from somewhere and set up in the corner for your shared meals — another silent little gift, unassuming and unobtrusive.  “I forgot the food again.”

The corner of his mouth quirks, this time. Evening light floats through the etched windows and dapples the comforter in soft-edged patches, burnishing his fur in brushed gunmetal and bronze. Glimmers of copper match his eyes.  “Knew you would.”

Your eyes pass over the table of offerings. There’s even the sauce you like — the source of that cumin-coriander fragrance. It’s another little peace offering. You feel yourself soften.

Yeah. He’s shit with words of affirmation, but he does more than his fair share with all the other love-languages. Your half-smile shifts just a little wider — rueful — as you move to wash your hands in the little sink. 

“Thank you, baby.” 

His eyes follow you sway across the small apartment. “C’mere when you’re done?”

The fact that it’s phrased as a request is odd enough to make you toss him a startled, concerned glance over one shoulder. He taps his claws lightly against the pillows beside him, tail flicking where it’s draped across the bed. You nod once, shaking your hands dry before you make your way across the room to settle yourself on the mattress beside him. Out of habit — an old one you’d mostly given up, but which has come back with a vengeance this past cycle — you take note of the spread of your thighs, and try to smooth your shirt over your belly and hips.

Stop. Caring, you order yourself. The internal voice is brutal and sharp, and you clench your fists against your waist, then clasp them together — trying not to be hyperaware of yourself and the space you take up.

Rocket clears his throat. Leans back against the pillows next to you. Folds his darkly-clawed hands over his own abdomen, taut beneath his casual Knowhere-clothes.

“I ever tell you about the first time I saw you?”

Self-consciousness aside, another smile starts to curve the corner of your mouth. “I don’t think so,” you say softly. “But it was that night of that big block party, right?” He doesn’t really know the term block party, other than hearing you use it to describe the festivities that seem to burst out of every corner of Exitar like wildflowers at least once every three or four cycles. “Steemie said it was the anniversary of the Collector officially handing Knowhere over to you guys. To the Guardians.”

He snorts. “Nah, gorgeous. That was just the first time you noticed me.”

preview from every inch ⊱⋆*✦*⋆⊰ ANTICIPATED 9/15

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WARNINGS: chubby!female reader with stretchmarks. discussion of fatphobia (systemic and internalized). References to past and future sexual activity — suggestive with some explicit commentary (because, rocket). the beginning of some foreplay (a lil second-base action), but no actual smut. references to marking (with claws). rocket refers to you by a variety of pet-names, including but not limited to: beautiful, pretty girl, princess, and doll.