Work Text:
“It’s nothing, just a nightmare.”
Yondu narrowed his eyes at you. “‘Just’ a nightmare. Right. If it was just a nightmare then why were ya crying in your sleep?”
You don’t meet his gaze, embarrassed. You wanted to deny it, but asking why you had been crying in your sleep had been the first thing Yondu had said when he shook you awake. He thought perhaps you were in pain or sick, but you had to admit the real reason was that you were just having a bad dream. “Look, it’s nothing. Like I said. Just a bad dream. You can go back to sleep now.”
“Well I’m up now. Might as well talk about it. Maybe you’ll sleep better if ya do.” Yondu leaned back against the wall of the abandoned shed the two of you had found shelter in during the night. He wasn’t going to let it go. He didn’t think he had ever seen you cry before, and here you were now doing it in your sleep. Didn’t seem right to just ignore it. That, and if you didn’t get it off your chest he figured you’d likely wake him again in the same manor when you fell back into whatever dream had been haunting you.
Frowning, you rested your chin on your knees, your back also against the wall of the shed, just a couple feet from Yondu. You wished you had found what you came on this job for sooner. Then you could have been sleeping in your own quarters instead of Yondu deciding the two of you should take the night in the old shed. In your quarters you could have just had your nightmare in peace and privacy, but no, now your captain was here with you interrogating about what horrors stalked your sleep. Nice. Just great.
“Ya really gonna try giving your captain the silent treatment now? Seems mighty rude. Would hate to have to assign extra chores for insubordination…” he trailed his sentence off.
You finally look up at him and sigh. Of course he’d pull rank. “Look, it’s dumb. It’s really nothing-”
“Cut that bullshit.” he interrupted. “People don’t cry over nothin’, an’ I don’t think I’ve ever seen ya cry before, so spill it.”
You straighten your back and rest against the wall. Time to get it over with, you supposed. “It just- I had a dream about home,” you finally responded, a hint a defeat in your voice.
“Oh. Yer gettin’ homesick?” He supposed that made sense. Homesick wasn’t necessarily a sentiment he knew well, but he knew that Quill sometimes got homesick too, though he had pretty much grown grown out of it by now. He left Terra much younger than you had. You had had more time to get attached to your home world, so he wasn’t totally surprised.
“Not exactly,” you reply.
Yondu raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t quite the answer he had been expecting. “No?”
“No. You see, I um… I didn’t exactly have the… best life back home. My… my dad… he would- um… he-” You felt your throat getting tight and you tried to continue, explaining that you and your father didn’t have a great relationship growing up, and skirted around telling Yondu about the abuse.
Your voice cracked and Yondu cut you off. He got the hint of what your dream had been about and he no longer wished to urge you to continue if you didn’t want to. He stated as such with a hard tone, though you could tell it was not in anger at you, but for you. “I see. Ya ain’t gotta talk about yer daddy none if you don’t wanna. I think I already get the picture.” He already knew the dream was bad, but he hadn’t expected it to be that kinda bad.
You nodded your head gratefully and relaxed a bit.
The two of you sat in silence a little bit before Yondu noticed you starting to shiver a little in the cool night air. He then surprised you by taking off his duster and tossing it to you.
You looked at him with widened, confused, eyes.
“Ya look cold. You’ll sleep better warm.” He stated flatly.
“But you-”
“I’ll be fine.” He made to lay back down, seeming without a care. “I run hot anyways. You get to sleep now. We got a long walk back to the ship in the mornin’.”
“I- um- ok, sir,” you reply, still a little surprised but obeyed your captain’s orders regardless. You laid back down on the floor of the shed, now with your captain’s duster as a blanket. You could only assume it came with the caveat of “we never speak of this” so that the others wouldn’t start to think he was going soft. You’d respect this unspoken order, though you didn’t necessarily see this kind of softness as a bad thing. He was being kind, and in your opinion that was something to be respected, rather than mocked. This kindness made you feel a bit better, and you allowed your eyes to close, eventually drifting back into sleep.
Yondu lay awake for a bit longer, thinking over what had just taken place. Clearly, you were better off as part of his crew than back on Terra, especially if your memories of your life on Terra gave you nightmares.
The thought of a parent willfully harming their child made his blood boil. He couldn’t understand how a parent could ever hurt their kid. What kind of parents could beat on their kid? Or neglect them? Or use them as a battery… Or could even sell their own little baby into slavery…
In his mind it was settled. If your father was enough of a piece of shit that you didn’t even miss home, then he was gonna be your daddy now. Not like you’d be the first Terran he’d come to take as his own kid, might not even be the last.
He’d be better than you or Peter’s fathers would ever be. He was sure of that.