#ox writes

GOTG FANFIC FEATURING PETER LEARNING ABOUT SPACE CIGARETTES WITH TULLK AND THE GANG.

Peter looked at the weird, flat pill in his palm. Tullk had just flicked it over to him after popping one in his own mouth. A few of the other crewmen had begun sucking on theirs, and were breathing out little puffs of acrid green smoke. Peter put one and two together, and couldn’t believe what he was holding in his hand.

He looked up at Tullk and asked, “So it’s like… like a cigarette that you eat?”

Tullk nodded, “Aye, Pete, yah jus’ suck on it, an’ breathe in the smoke.”

Peter looked from Tullk, to the pill, and back again. He was amazed at the weird new things there were in space, but a bit scandalized. He was only a young teenager, and hadn’t been with the Ravagers for too long. His mother’s cautionary words on the dangers of smoking and cigarettes were still ringing in his ears. He looked around, then realized what was going on.

He had been hanging out with this table of Ravagers for a while, just Tullk, Gef, Oblo, and a handful of others whose names Peter couldn’t wrap his mouth around. They were the few crewmen on ship who didn’t tell him to screw off whenever he came around. But this little gray Altoid in his hand was more than just a weird, space-cigarette, or an offer of friendship. It was a test. A rite of passage for Peter. They wanted to make sure he was ‘cool’ or something. He took a deep breath, and brushed aside all of the school health lessons, and PSAs about the dangers of smoking, and put the tab on his tongue.

He tried to keep from grimacing, or coughing, but both were out of his control now. It tasted dusty, and sharp, and putrid. It immediately started to fizz and prick at his tongue and cheeks, and the smell made him gag.

The crew burst into giggles, and Gef actually fell off his bench. It reminded Peter of the time his mom and aunt gave his baby cousin a lemon wedge, and laughed at the expressions of surprise and disgust the baby made. What made him mad now, was that he was the baby. He had been trying to be cool, and confident with the rest of the crew, and now? Now he was the baby with the lemon wedge. An incredibly painful lemon wedge that was starting to hurt his mouth, and that he wanted to get rid of as soon as possible.

Tullk was just brushing a tear from his eyes and got halfway through, “Don’t bite down or-” before he saw Peter’s jaw clench, and heard the tab crack between the kid’s teeth. He had just enough time to grab a nearby wastebin, and put a hand on the kid’s back to bend him over before the inevitable happened.

Peter wanted to get rid of the tab as soon as possible, without spitting it out, so he had done what any child with a candy-shaped pill would have done. What he hadn’t figured out though, and what Tullk hadn’t had the chance to tell him yet, was that the amount of smoke being released from a tab depended on the surface area. Only people who were just as serious about smoking as they were about dying young bit down on the tab. One moment, Peter was sucking on a smoking pill, the next moment, all the smaug in Asia erupted between Peter’s teeth.

He couldn’t tell when the coughing stopped, and the vomiting began. All he could see was the thick haze of hot, green smoke that enveloped his head and burned his nose and eyes. He was dully aware of Tullk’s hand on the back of his head, helping him aim for the wastebin that Tullk was holding in front of him.

Golly, I wish I could hide this under ‘read more’ but my blog will eat and destroy that, and it’s not TOO long, so.

GOTG oneshot with child Peter pestering Kraglin, who’s stuck with babysitting duty. 

1286 words.

---

A whole forest of Aygroid trees were quite a distracting thing to young eyes. The Ravagers had barely flown under the dense cloud cover of SF-12.28, before Peter had his nose glued to the window, and would probably be useless for the rest of the mission. Hoards of the feathery, magenta-gray leaves that carpeted the planet’s hills cause Peter to gasp in wonder. Past the leaves were the multicolored fruits that would transition between bright pink, and a gray that matched the leaves. Kraglin sighed. This was going to be one of those dangerous “Peter Runs Off And Tries To Touch Everything” missions. Or worse, one where all the other crewmates got to go off raiding, and he was left with a curt, “watch after the boy.” and a good view of the fun he would miss.

Inevitably, Peter jabbed a finger at the flickering fruits, and his head snapped up to look at Kraglin. Kraglin braced himself for a stupid question.

“Why are they doing that?” Peter asked, so innocently.

Maybe if he pretended he hadn’t heard, Peter would eventually forget the question, or something.

“Kraglin! Why are they changing color!? KRAGLIN!” Little Peter was tugging at Kraglin’s sleeve now, and the chuckles from some crewmates passing by struck Kraglin right in the Nerve. The ‘stoically staring out the window’ facade was unrecoverable.

“They just do that, okay?!” There. Question answered. Now maybe-

“But WHY do they do that?!” Peter tugged harder.

The wine in his voice made Kraglin growl, and he narrowed his eyes at Peter, “They do that because their natural enemy, an Amphigate, hates flickering colors like that, so it evolved little slaps that flick up and down, and there’s one color on one side, and one on another, and they just DO that, okay?!”

Kraglin had made the brash assumption that that would put a stop to the questions.

“But why do the Amphibibates eat them?”

Kraglin was wrong. His lips drew up into a thin line of frustration, and he tried to focus back outside, on the planet’s surface.

Punching under the cloud cover was rough, but now that they were out of it, they could finally land in the clearing they had found earlier. The hills of SF-12.28 were well rounded, and would have presented as a soothing landscape, had it not been for the mottled red and black spires jutting up into the sky that interrupted the landscape. Off in the distance there was a cluster of spires that surrounded their target. It was a small mining city, whose main export was fyroxite. The black market had a high regard for fyroxite, and the Eclector needed some upgrades.

What really had Kraglin’s attention, however, was the clouds. They were developing a darker tinge to their rust-gray color. Raglin knew this planet had a tendency for odd weather patterns, and he wondered if the turbulence and rattling they had experienced in the upper atmosphere meant difficulties on the surface.

“Look! Look, Kraglin, it’s snowing!” Peter was nearly vibrating, and Kraglin had never seen the boy happier, and he had never been more baffled as to why. The snows of SF-12.28 were not the usual snows of other planets. Sure, it had the usual atmosphere for ‘normal’ life, but all the odd chemicals were in the clouds. Kraglin watched the first flakes of yellow and brown tinted triangular blobs fall in front of the ship window.

Kraglin groaned. This job would be hard enough without a snow of diamond shards raining down, and clogging up their engines and weapons. Plus, those with thinner skins and hides would need to cover themselves from head to foot, to keep from getting cut from the shards. Maybe babysitting Peter on the ship wouldn’t be that bad after all.

Kraglin braced himself, and put a firm hand on Peter’s head out of instinct as the ship ‘clunked’ to a stop on the ground. Peter stumbled a little, but he didn’t flop to the ground this time at least. The ship door opened, and the crew started funneling out and setting up camp. Kraglin didn’t really have much of a job here, aside from giving everyone else jobs, so he stayed by the window, and promised to go outside eventually. Besides, he wanted to keep Peter as far away from the snow as possible, so maybe staying by the window would encourage him to-

The quick footsteps running down the hallway to the ship’s door and Peter’s ever-quieting cry of “It’s snowing!” were Kraglin’s only warning.

He bolted after Peter and tried calling his name, but that only ever stopped the brat when Yondu yelled it at him. Kraglin was always amazed at how frighteningly fast Young Terrans were. He was in a full-tilt sprint, and Peter was still nearly outrunning him. Peter made it to the ship’s main door, and Kraglin was just beginning to elbow his way past the crew to catch up to the little bugger.

The crew looked at Peter in confusion as he whooped and romped in the fine dusting of diamond shards.

Kraglin stopped by the door, panting. He resented his earlier panic. Peter seemed fine, and he was running around, happy as ever. Maybe Terrans had a resistant hide, who knows.

Then Peter crouched down, and did what any little boy, tempted by snow would do, and started trying to squeeze together a snowball.

---

Four hours in the med bay and two pairs of the finest-tipped tweezers later, and Peter was laying curled up in his bun, whimpering, hands hidden under layers and blobs of bandages.

Yondu had spent the last forty minutes ranting at Kraglin about paying attention on the job, and the value of having a small Terran on the crew, and the need to preserve said small Terran. Kraglin didn’t think it was possible, but he was now in a worse mood than before.

He was nursing a pint in a lonely part of the galley, and flicking through a tablet. He still didn’t quite understand why Peter had been so excited about the snow. It was literally shards of discolored diamond, that were too small and rough to sell, and got in all the nooks and crannies of everything and splintered everywhere. Kraglin sighed. Maybe Peter had wanted to sell the diamonds on Terra. Terrans liked shiney things, and they did make a lot of jewelry out of diamonds.

Between sips of his brew, Kraglin had been flipping through the pages about Terran snow, until he found a photograph labelled “snow day.” It was about a half-dozen Terran children, bundled in colorful, bulky clothing, rolling around and throwing wads of pure white dust at each other.

Kraglin blinked. He read the description next to the picture. Then he had an idea.

He chugged the last dregs of his drink, tossed it in the washer’s window, and tugged on a pair of leather gloves. He paused for one moment just to think about what he was doing, then he did it.

He stuck his gloved hand under the rations dispenser, and punched in an order for shaved ice.

Howard snipped the long ends off a bundle of roses, and put them into a vase. After some careful brushes and gestures to arrange them, he took another bundle of flowers, daisies this time, and did the same with them.

He did this every morning or so, to prepare his flowers for sale. It didn’t take him too long, there weren’t many flowers after all. Howard’s flower business was really only a very small stand, or booth by the side of the highway, in front of his family’s old house. The current generation did not really know what the booth was actually being used for, but they kept it stocked with flowers, and left it be, which was fine with Howard. The booth was in need of repainting, and perhaps some sides needed replacing, but Howard liked it just fine. The “Bouquets. $3” on the side brought in the occasional customer.  

A sigh came from the side of the booth. Howard looked up at the sun. Was it that time of day already? Howard’s constant companion was at his usual position by the side of the booth, sitting with his back to the plywood wall, and facing the oncoming traffic of the highway.

He was a young man, dressed in old clothes; The buckled shoes and tailcoats from when America had just begun to think for itself. His long hair had been untied for centuries. He had died long ago, and somewhere between his death, and when he and Howard met, the lad had forgotten his true name. Being the poetic type, however, he had begun calling himself Florence.

The sigh was always a cue for the Conversation to start.

“Did you say something, Florence?” Howard asked, not for the first time.

“Oh, I was just thinking about her…” Florence said. His voice was breathy, and it seemed like his entire vocabulary involved sighs, and wistful airs.

“What was it this time?” Howard knew the general script by now, but this was always an interesting moment. The script never really changed, but the subject had some variety to it.

“Her hair…”

Howard nodded. Apparently that was what Florence’s poems would be about for the rest of the day, “What about her hair, friend?”

“Everything…” Florence said, eyes glazing over, as usual, “It was dark brown, but when the sun caught it just right, there were hints of blond, and gold. Acres of ripe wheat were put to shame by those simple flashes of blond. But it was a rich, deep brown. The trees, the earth itself, does not contain any colors to compare it to. She would wear it up in a ribbon I had bought her at a fair. It was almost careless, the way she would draw it back, and tie it--” Howard simply nodded as he listened. He knew Florence was going to go on for quite a long while, but he was used to it by now. “--Sometimes a few strands of hair would fall in front of her beautiful face, and there were blessed moments when she would forget to push them aside, and that privilege would fall to me. Sometimes my knuckle would brush against her cheek, and I would be reminded of the true meaning of ‘luxury’, and ‘heaven’. Sometimes an arrant breeze--a glorious thing, really--would come past her, and I was allowed to catch the slightest scent of her hair-”

Much later, after Florence was winding down his third poem, they arrived at the section of the script that Howard truly disliked. He didn’t mind listening to Florence, and he actually quite enjoyed the poetry and lyrics, but this next subject always made Howard nearly break his calm exterior.

Florence turned to look around the flower booth, and up at Howard, “She’s coming for me, you know! You and I get all of these visitors, waiting for their own loves, and they always find each other, but I know she’s coming! She promised me that not even death could keep us apart. Not even death. She promised me. She’ll be the next one over the hill there… Either on a horse, or maybe her father’s carriage. It was a nice carriage, really. Or maybe one of those… cars, are they?”

Howard glanced between the highway, with its speeding, honking cars, and busses, to Florence, who had been wearing the same spectral waistcoat for years.

Florence caught Howard’s attention again, “I know you think I’m insane. I know you think I’m wrong, and that she’s gone, but I also know better.”

It was Howard’s turn to sigh, and he shook his head at the young fool. Florence chuckled at him, and rested back on the side of the booth, watching traffic pass.

~~~

“No… no, no, absolutely not.”

“Thueban, please. You’re the only one who knows how to access that part of our lives. You’re the only one who knows your human past, and right now, we need-“

“NO.” Normally so composed, so poised, and strategic. Thueban’s calculated exterior was cracking before Elan’s eyes. Fractures showing themselves in the form of wide eyes, a quick breath, a shift in his brows, a firm set in his jawline that belied more than just a resolve.

Elan was still persisting, however, “Please. We need to know-“

“NO!”

Thinking back, Elan had never heard Thueban scream. He had never heard the ear-piercing shriek that rattled in Thueban’s mouth. For once, one raw, startling moment, his façade completely shattered, and he clutched his arms around his naked, scaled chest, and curled in on himself as much as he could. Lacking knees to pull up to his chin, he curled his tail up under him, shrinking, and shaking like it was winter.

There was so much going on that Elan was at a loss for how to react, or what to do. He started becoming aware of how utterly tiny his brother was, and how utterly large he was in comparison, even though he was sitting down and hunched.

He was sent to Thueban’s den on a mission, however, and tried one last time, from a different angle.

“Thueban… brother… please.”

The tiny snake curled in front of him shivered, his long locks falling in front of his face and shielding the tears that were heard through his voice, “Elan, please- I can’t… I can’t. Please don’t make me…”

Elan tried to keep his speech gentle, “You can’t what?”

“I can’t go back… I don’t want to remember… I don’t want to go back to that.”

“Go back to what?” Elan asked. He leaned forward with the question and flinched back at the answer.

“I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, OKAY?” Thueban screamed again at the ground in front of him. Elan could see his fingernails starting do dig into his shoulders, trying to relieve the intense frustration, somehow, “I DON’T WANT TO TALK ANYMORE. I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK, I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T-“ Thueban checked himself, and tried to regain some semblance of sanity, only resulting in him shoving the blame onto Elan. He looked up at his brother and leaned his back into the new barrage of wails, “GET. OUT. GET YOUR FAT ASS OUT OF MY HOUSE. DON’T TALK TO ME. DON’T LOOK AT ME. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.”

1pX2pFrance oneshot.

Sadik heard the door slam, and looked up from his phone. Francis’ blond hair bounced as he stomped down the hallway.

“Sadik! If you’re gonna do something like that again, you need to light a candle or something!”

(I had this sitting in my drafts for a while, I didn’t know what else to add, but I think it’s pretty good where I left it)

Chapter 1.

By Becca.