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“Ugh,” Peter groaned, with feeling, and flopped face-first onto one of the many sofas of questionable origins in what amounted to the crew’s lounge area aboard the Ravager ship that had been his home nigh on a decade now.
‘Sofa’ was perhaps not the correct word to describe it, but it was considerably more concise than ‘the weird piece of oblong reclining furniture that sits nearest the door and sort of squishes down when you lie on it and probably started off a drastically different color than its current dingy muck-grey but what are you gonna do?’ It was soft, and only smelled vaguely of beer and ozone, and most importantly, when Peter let his arms dangle over the sides with his knuckles skimming the grimy floor, it alleviated a little of the pressure in his shoulders.
They’d been back from their supply run for a spare thirty minutes and Peter knew he ought to’ve changed by now into something more comfortable, but he was dragging his heels about it - figuratively, as in actuality he had both his knees pressed into the sofa cushions with his feet floating skyward. As it was, the bare concession he’d made was stripping off his jacket and swapping his pants for a worn-soft pair with a drawstring waist. He still had his boots on, but it was a fool’s errand to wander around a Ravager ship without them.
He laid there for a few long seconds, letting the pressure dissipate and feeling sorry for himself, listening to the far-off sounds of the crew raucously enjoying the tilt of the ship’s pendulum toward the side of ‘plenty’ rather than ‘lean,’ the muted, measured tread of footfalls picking up over the distant din as somebody drew nearer.
“’s a matter Quill?” asked a familiar voice, accompanied by the sudden force of a hand slapping gently against one of his booted feet where they hovered. Peter let his abused foot sway with the motion and fall to the side, dropping the other straight down without bothering to give a damn whether the speaker was within kicking range as he did so. He was rewarded with a slight thud and a quiet yelp and he grinned victoriously into the cushion where his face pressed against it.
“M’back hurts,” he grunted by way of explanation.
He could feel Kraglin - and it had to be Kraglin, because Yondu would have just started hollering at him immediately and nobody else aboard the ship ever really bothered to ask after Peter’s well-being - glaring daggers at him but Peter didn’t pay that much mind. Kraglin had become something like what Peter imagined an older brother was supposed to be, if an older brother teased you and wrestled you to bruising and reluctantly agreed to sneak you onto his home-planet and claim kinship with you so that you could get the appropriate medical assistance to take your body and make it into what you knew it was rightly supposed to be.
‘Biological similarities’ Yondu had grumbled during his incredibly short and dissatisfactory explanation when he announced that they would be going to Xandar to get Peter what he needed rather than back to Terra - a point upon which he and Peter agreed implicitly though they both had very different reasons for not wanting to return to Peter’s planet of origin.
“Thought you was s’posed to take that thing off after awhile,” Kraglin said, apparently deciding to file the half-hearted kick away for later retribution.
“S’posed to,” Peter replied mulishly. “Don’t want to.”
Kraglin pushed his legs over a bit and Peter felt the sofa dip as he lowered himself down onto it. He wasn’t making any noise, which wasn’t unusual for Kraglin, who spent most of his time hovering quietly just behind Yondu’s shoulder, waiting for an appropriate moment to make a joke or a threat, as the situation required. He was a thinker, Kraglin, which made him the ideal counterweight to Yondu’s doer - and Peter’s if Peter was being honest, which he wasn’t especially in the habit of considering the past eight or so years of his upbringing among a horde of professional liars, pillagers, and thieves.
“Seems a little foolish to risk fuckin’ up your ‘later’ just ‘cause you’re currently in the shit right now,” Kraglin said thoughtfully.
“Fuck do you know?” Peter grumbled, petulant, but he rolled his head to the side, cheek still pressed against the sofa, so that he could glare down the bridge of his nose at Kraglin. He didn’t imagine it was particularly effective considering his gaze landed somewhere in the vicinity of Kraglin’s knees where they stuck out off the cushion. “Two years, Krag,” he muttered. “Two more years I gotta be like this.”
“Y’already done eight of ‘em,” Kraglin replied easily. “Now, I’m not a numbers man, but two ain’t hardly nothin’ on eight.”
Peter huffed a little laugh.
“That ain’t the tune you were singin’ when you and Yondu had to deal with all them Kalmurians last week.”
Kraglin rolled his eyes and reached out to swat at Peter’s thigh.
“I’m tryin’ to dispense wisdom here, y’little asshole,” he groused, but there was no real heat behind it. “The docs were pretty clear when we went to see ‘em last. Too much of that shit and you’re gonna have troubles down the line.”
Peter heaved as big a sigh as he could manage with his ribs compressed as they were.
“Yeah,” he said quietly after a long second. “I know. But I don’t - ” he cut himself off, biting at his lip in frustration. Even after all these many years with Yondu trying to snarl and glare and brawl it out of him, Peter’s first instinct was to lay his soul bare to anybody who asked sincerely enough. He didn’t talk about all of this much, and when he did it was only ever with Kraglin, or to let Yondu know that some important milestone was coming up and they’d need to take a day or two to make the trip to Xandar and back.
Kraglin waited for him to pick back up again, but when Peter stayed quiet - teeth digging into his lip so hard he thought it might bleed and eyes stinging so bad that he shut them, just in case - he reached out to rest his palm awkwardly on Peter’s shoulder and said, “Coupla hours now for a full life of bein’ more suitably shaped later.” He patted, once, awkwardly, and continued, “Nobody said it was gonna be an easy trade-off kid, butcha come this far.”
He was silent for a second and then added, “’sides if you don’t make it, Yondu’s prob’ly gonna spend the next fifty years givin’ you shit.”
Peter sighed again.
“You’re right about that,” he grumbled in agreement. Yondu had a funny sense of humor that was more mean than anything else and while he never seemed to wander into any of Peter’s raw spots, he rarely showed that same restraint with the rest of the crew, Kraglin included.
They sat there for another few moments, while Peter wiggled around and rearranged himself so that he and Kraglin were sitting side-by-side.
“Got a whole crate of plyofoam,” Kraglin said out of nowhere, scrubbing thoughtfully at his chin and shooting Peter a glance out of the side of his eye. He was a funny-looking fella, Kraglin, all knobby appendages and stupid mohawk, not that Peter had a lot of room to talk, sixteen and still tripping over his own feet more often than not.
“And?” Peter asked and arched an eyebrow, when nothing else was forthcoming. The thoughtful line of Kraglin’s mouth just barely tilted as he looked over.
“Reckon if you change fast enough we could fill the cap’n’s mattress with it again before the party winds down?”
Peter jumped bolt upright before Kraglin had even finished speaking. He could feel the unholy glee burning in his face, out to the tips of his ears.
“Gimme ten minutes!” he announced, and took off at a steady clip towards the crewmen’s quarters.
“Y’got five!” Kraglin hollered at his back, but he was a soft touch, Peter knew. Even if he took the time to primp and came back after fifteen, he’d still be waiting there, ready to cause a little mischief.
It was a funny little family he’d stumbled into for himself, but he had to admit the brother wasn’t half-bad.