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This is what Martinex dreams:
Yondu presses hot and wet and shivering against his chest, mouthing pleas to an unseen master. His hands wring tight in scratch-wool cloth dark as black holes, and this time Martinex won’t let go.
When he stumbles to his feet, Marty stands.
When he staggers out the door, Marty follows.
They walk an open path through a thousand crystal stars cut sharp into the sky above. They blanche blue skin pale as death with their light and Yondu won’t look back. The door to his ship opens. A thousand small faces, a thousand small unblinking eyes, a thousand reaching hands and they ask him why and why and
Marty wakes up.
The pain pills go down rough, the swig of caff barely helping. His skin may not be as sharp as it looks, but it’s too thick for hypos so he has to do this the old fashioned way. His head aches. His eyes burn. His shifts starts in ten minutes.
Sometimes Martinex can still feel the phantom weight, before he opens his eyes. Yondu had always ended up sprawled across him in the morning, and Marty may not actually be as hard as he looks but he can’t be comfortable. It never seemed to matter to Yondu. His body draped imperiously over Marty’s chest, no matter where he was when they’d drifted off, like he was returning inevitably to homeostasis.
Yondu’s skin was soft, strokable, not that Marty would ever set off a string off blustering denials by telling him that. His skin feels sleek if you rub it the right way and scratchy if you don’t.
He grumbled every time when Martinex made him shower, complaining about it washing away all his carefully built up Ravager musk. By morning he’d smelled like sweat, and sex, and a faint static-y warmth, like the radiation heat of stars.
Now when Marty shifts in his sleep, he feels light enough to drift away
Charlie and Stakar are already on the bridge. Martinex’s shoulders stiffen and he swigs the dregs of his caff. The last gritty ends coat his tongue unpleasantly. He should have brought a bigger cup.
“Why now, Charlie?” Stakar rakes a hand through his hair, shoulder arcs smoldering an ominous glow. “I need you here.”
“You want me here,” Charlie glowers, arms folded. “An’ I want my own ship. Already got a line on a good vessel, picking it up in three days.”
Martinex settles into his seat, powers his holodpad, and doesn’t look up.
“Three days notice,” Stakar hisses, slams his hand down on the back of the captain’s chair. “You're my damn first mate, Charlie, I need a little more than three fucking days.”
Charlie scoffs.
“Please,” he jerks his head in Martinex’s direction. “If I weren't here you’d have already promoted Martinex from second to first. Ain’t gonna take much t’bring him up to speed.”
Martinex stills, hand clenching tight on the holopad. The words on the screen fuzz and blur into nonsense, and Stakar’s still talking but Marty can’t hear it. He woodenly upends his mug again but there’s nothing left.
It took three cups before Yondu would do more than glare balefully at the world for daring to exist before caff. Scalding hot, thick enough to stand a spoon in, sweet enough to rot his non-metallic teeth.
He only ate that early if Marty shoved it into his hands, and made him take it out the door with him. Oh, he’d bitch and grumble the whole way down the corridor but it was always gone by the time they got to the bridge.
“You didn’t even let him talk,” Charlie’s fists are clenched, arms stiff at his sides. Rest of the bridge crew had quietly cleared out once the tension turned into miasma, and it’s only the three of them left.
“The trial was by the code,” Stakar grips the back of his chair hand enough it creaks ominously. “Evidence was presented, and he was given the chance to speak.”
“After you fucking muzzled him,” Charlie growls, “Should’ve never listened to Genma’s faction.”
“They knew I wasn’t objective.” Stakar’s voice is stiff, “They were making sure the protocols were followed,”
“Like you weren’t objective about Aleta?” Charlie leans down to hiss in his face.
Stakar’s shoulders flash white-hot, and he grabs Charlie by the collar.
“You keep Aleta out of this, that wasn’t the same.”
“Why should I? He was practically her son, you know it’s why we haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since–“
“Shut the hell up.”
Someone needs to stop this.
“Captain,” Martinex shoves himself out his chair, ghosts a hand on Stakar’s arm. The air smells like electricity, the lights are dimming and someone needs to stop this. “Please.”
Stakar’s gaze snaps sideways, stares at Martinex with eyes glowing like the birth of stars, shining with something foreign and hungry.
No one moves.
Then without a word Stakar turns, strides off the bridge. The door slams open for him before he even gets close, the lights flaring bright again before sparking out.
It’s cold, quiet draped mournfully over the hum of the instruments. The sky wheels and sparks in the viewscreen, bright pinpricks splicing the dark.
Charlie’s chest heaves, and his eyes squeeze shut slowly as he breaths in. He opens them, face twisting and hands going limp.
Martinex falls heavy into his chair. Charlie looks at him a long moment, rests a comforting hand on his shoulder. He gives it a squeeze, and goes.
Yondu’s nightmares didn’t wake him often but when they came, they came brutal. It always took a long, helpless moment, before Yondu slowed his panicked flailing. Would have been enough to break a nose once or twice, if Marty was a little fleshier.
Good thing his skin’s tougher than most.
He would pull Yondu close, tuck his face in the crook of his neck, rub gently between his shoulder blades until the shivering stopped.
Having his own ship, meant Martinex couldn’t be there for Yondu, the nights when they came. His alert chimes though sometimes, Yondu’s call sign blinking in the dark hours of the morning.
Marty always had the newest record, some new song from that Xandarian pop star Yondu liked so much. He’d put it on, and they’d listen together.
You didn’t even let him talk
Charlie’s gone, but his words still sit splinter sharp under Marty’s skin. They worm deeper, as hour by hour his shift drags on. Stakar never returns. Martinex turns over with night shift lead, directs them to call with any problems.
It’s gonna be like all the time, once he has to take over first.
The corridor for the senior crew is dark, silent, every door closed. Marty pauses by Charlie’s door, but the blue light blinks blankly back. No one’s inside.
Yondu hadn’t known what to do, the first time he came back to Marty with night terrors still flashing behind his eyes. Marty shook, stiff, frozen. Yondu had tried to touch Marty like Marty touched him, but he’d rolled away, couldn’t bear it the feel of hands.
Marty shivered and shivered and shivered, teeth clenched and fingers cutting into his palms. So Yondu had sat, close by his head, hummed low while his hands fidgeting with some trinket.
Halfway through Yondu's only slightly off key rendition of his latest new favorite album of sugar-drop pop Marty twisted. He flopped close enough to bury his face in Yondu’s hip, and breathed.
That bottle of Iridian gin’s sat untouched on Marty’s shelf for months. He yanks the stopper off the dusty top, pours a finger into a glass. Stares at it, pours a second.
His comm blinks at him hatefully, and maybe he should. Maybe he has to. The Eclector’s hailing frequencies are on his dial, the line straight to Yondu’s personal comm. If Kraglin’s with him, that means most likely Yondu still has his ship too.
But would Yondu even talk to him?
No. He trusts Marty. Or trusted. And Martinex loves him, the kind of love that’s grown roots so deep and tangled that even if he pulls, they’ll never really all come out.
Marty drains the last of his glass, rotely pours himself another.
Now, away from the stares of the council and memories shackled around his wrists, maybe Yondu will talk. Say something, anything.
Marty has to try.
“The commissioning’s tonight,” Yondu crows, practically bounces into their room. Marty raises an amused eyebrow.
“Your own ship huh? What’cha gonna name her?”
Yondu blinks, mouth falling open dramatically. Everything that man does is dramatic, and Martinex’s mouth twitches.
“Maaaaaarty,” Yondu flings his hands wide, “I don’t have a name.”
He floomps onto the bed, collapses backwards.
“You have any ideas?” Marty twists in his chair, folds his arms across the back. “Gotta be something colorful,” he smirks, “That ship certainly is.”
“Hey,” Yondu pouts, “Don’t go casting impre-impre–“
Marty rests his head on his arms. “Imprecations?”
“Yeah,” Yondu says brightly, then scowls. “Don’t go casting none of those on my ship. She’s an eclectic lady, she is.”
Martinex wisely refrains from starting a debate about the correct meaning of ‘imprecations.’
“Eclectic’s certainly the word for it.”
Then Yondu’s eyes go wide and he shoots back up.
“That’s what I’m gonna call her then!”
“Hmmm?” Martinex raises an eyebrow.
“The Eclector,” Yondu says proudly. “It’s a perfect name for a perfect ship.”
And he looks so smugly satisfied with himself, Martinex can’t help but reach out and wrap a hand around his nape, bring that grinning mouth to his.
“Yondu,” Martinex drinks in the sight of him. He stares back with wary, scowling bewilderment. Just behind him on the bed is that Obfonteri kid, his first mate, looking like if he could murder Marty through the screen he would.
They’re in Yondu’s bedroom. Both of them, together. Kraglin’s half undressed, and Yondu’s got a blanket pulled up around his lap.
Oh.
Martinex swallows. All the words the gin had given him dry up and float away.
“The fuck are you calling about, T’naga,”
Marty hutches, fingers digging into his thighs. Yondu’s never called him that, not once, not even as a suspicious-eyed nub glaring out of his occasional refuge in the Starhawk’s vents.
He swallows, tries again.
“I… I needed,” his throat is so dry, “needed to see you.”
“Well,” Yondu sticks his chin out, “Disappointed I ain’t dead?”
It’s like a punch to the sternum.
“Fuck, Yondu, how could you say that?” Marty’s voice breaks, and his chest throbs.
Yondu shrugs apathetically. Obfonteri’s eyes narrow, and he shifts closer to Yondu’s back.
“I need to know,” Marty has to keep going, this is worth it, Yondu is worth this, “How they did the trial, it was wrong, what they did to you was wrong, just please. Please tell me–”
“Nothing to tell,” Yondu pulls the blankets higher, won’t look straight at Marty. “You heard what I did.”
“But kids, Yondu… trading in children, you know how I– what happened– kids like us,” Martinex breaks off, tries to calm his breathing enough to have his words make sense. Behind Yondu, Obfonteri shifts, looks confused but Yondu knows what he means. “Tell me it was anything else, give me a reason, something, that I did the wrong thing. I’ll leave, come find you– I’ll–“
“Ain’t gonna change a damn thing,” Yondu shoves himself to his feet, walks out of view.
A door slams, and Marty breaks.
His throat burns and his eyes burn, and he digs his hands into them until they throb and sparks burst behind the lids. His stomach sucks in, misery choking thick in his throat.
He drops his hands limply to the table. Something blinks green in bland repetition in front of him and fuck. The comm’s still on.
Marty looks up, reaches to swipe it closed but Obfonteri's staring at him. Just staring, not saying a word, with something almost like understanding in his eyes.
He closes the connection.
This is what Martinex dreams:
Yondu is in his arms and it's only them, Yondu is in his arms and he never leaves and the stars spin on dizzying in the darkness above, screaming in twisted explosions of light and nothing is okay, nothing.