"Yondu is gonna kill me." Peter Quill had uttered those words before but never had he believed they might be true. Well, not since that one time Yondu had threatened to let the crew eat him. He believed then, as scared kids will.

He was a scared kid again. Peter's hands were shaking as he pulled himself out of the cockpit of the ship, staring at the damage done by his horrible landing. "Holy shit," he breathed, staring at the gouge of dirt and earth that had been kicked up behind him. Trees in his path were shattered or leaned drunkly away from the massive slip 'n slide he'd made.

Despite the precariousness of his situation, the teen was a little impressed with the carnage.

It struck him that he was exposed out here, standing on his hull and staring at the forest like an idiot. He ducked into the ship and grabbed some gloves and tools. As he climbed back out, he paused as an acerbic, familiar scent hit his nose. "Ah, shit!"

He hopped off the nose of the ship and hurried around the side, stopping when he saw the last of the fuel drip away into the ground. "Oh, shit, shit, shit!"

Peter stopped and grabbed his head, trying to clear it. For several minutes, all he could think was, Yondu is gonna kill me so hard.

Gradually the panic passed and Peter started thinking. Okay, first step was obviously to patch the fuel tank. He couldn't do anything until that was done. Then he could worry about replacing the fuel.

In the middle of fucking nowhere on a primitive planet.

"No problem. I can do this." Peter took a deep breath and went to get the scrap steel from the hold. He'd welded before, helping Ravagers repair ships, so that wasn't daunting. It's more that he was by himself in a strange place without anyone to help. For the first time, Peter had no one else but himself, and he didn't like it.

It was dark before he was done, and he finished by the light of a fire. At least, he hoped he was finished. The only way to be sure was to put fuel in it but he'd only be able to do that once. He could test it with another liquid but if it held, he'd have no way to drain the tank completely. Worse, the repairs could totally hold while in the atmosphere and then rupture out in space. Just the thought of testing his welds made his palms sweat because it was do-or-die, no second chances.

The forest came alive with sounds as darkness fell; Peter poked the fire to be sure it would stay lit. He heard something that sounded like an owl, and another thing that sounded like a wolf - there were even bugs that make that annoying buzzing noise he used to hate in summer. Or the sound was close enough that it doesn't matter.

Peter slipped his hands behind his head and sat back against the ship. The orange and blue hull was marred by his shit-ass repair job and he felt guilty about that. The ship had been beautiful, until he'd crashed it. Her sexiness was why he'd "borrowed" it for a quick ride in the first place. Yondu hadn't even named her yet or given her to one of the shipless Ravagers. Peter knew he was years away from his own ship; that was another reason he'd grabbed it. He wouldn't get another chance to pilot something this sexy for a long time.

Now he'd probably never get a chance because Yondu? Yondu was going to fucking kill him.

Peter moved his hands and slammed his head back against the hull. "I've never been laid. I'll die an eighteen year old virgin. This sucks."

Something screamed in the dark forest as if it agreed with him.

Peter checked to be sure his gun was in his holster. When nothing tried to kill him, he went back to staring at the fire. He could just stay here and see if Yondu found him. If he didn't, he could die an old man. On a primitive planet in the middle of fucking nowhere because that was the life he dreamed of, yes sir!

No. He had to try. Yondu might still have to rescue him but if the leader of the crew found out Peter hadn't even tried to get himself out of this bind - and he would find out, because knowing when Peter had fucked up was one of his more annoying talents - he would kill him. Would probably let the crew eat him, too.

Well, at least he'd fixed the tank. That was step one. Tomorrow's problem: finding ship fuel on a planet that had no signs of advanced life.

"Fuckin' awesome." He slumped to the ground, punched his jacket into something approximating a pillow, and went to sleep.

Peter woke up determined to be in a good mood. Dusting his pants off, he grabbed a protein bar and went over the rest of the ship while chowing down. All the other damage was superficial and he'd fixed the tank. So now he just had to figure out the fuel issue. He climbed back in the ship and got out his walkman. Slipping on the headphones, he laid down on the top of the ship. As the comforting tones of Blue Swede's Hooked on a Feeling filled his ears, he got down to some serious thinking.

It only took two hours before he had a potential solution. That was pretty damn impressive considering that he'd accidentally taken a ninety minute map and had spent a chunk of the rest of the time masturbating. When was he going to have this much uninterrupted privacy again? He couldn't let that go to waste.

Climbing back inside the ship, he checked the reserve tank. There wasn't enough fuel to do more than get him into orbit, which was a start but then he'd be in orbit without power which was not a good place to be. However, he had remembered something about these M-ships: the reason Yondu preferred them was that they were pretty damned tough and tolerated a lot of abuse, including running on shitty fuel. Horuz had once told him that if you could even use a strong alcohol as fuel, especially if you mixed it with regular fuel. They'd need to break down and clean both of the one-ton engines after but Peter would happily do that himself if he 1) survived getting off the planet and 2) survived Yondu.

All he had to do was find some kickass booze. "God, I hope twenty-one isn't the legal limit here," he muttered to himself as he checked his pistol's charge. If worst came to worst, he would just steal it.

Assuming that there were people here at all. Otherwise, he was going to have to brew a few hundred gallons of booze himself. With one last check to be sure he had everything, including some scrap metal to show what he had to trade, Peter picked a random direction and started walking.

It was about noon before he stumbled across a creek. From there, he just followed it downstream, knowing that people liked to live near clean water. Sooner or later, he should find some. It was almost relaxing, walking through all this nature and listening to his music.

By nightfall, he was reconsidering the possibility that he'd have to brew his own fuel. He should stop and make a fire, even rest, but he wanted to go a bit further. Had he stopped, he probably would have missed the fire but it was a little hard to miss after full dark. Fire meant people and Peter took a deep breath, hoping they were friendly.

He was twenty feet away when a shadow stirred and became a man. "Halt and announce yourself!"

"Jesus!" Peter jumped back and raised his hands. He couldn't see well but the guy had some kind of big ass knife, or maybe a small sword. Regardless, it was longer than he was deep and Peter became dedicated to keeping it out of his torso. "Whoa, whoa, relax, dude. Look, hands up!"

"Name yourself!" the guard barked again in a gruff voice.

"Peter Quill! Though you might know me as Star Lord." He started to take a step back but something poked him in the back. He risked a look over his shoulder to see a man in plate armor pushing a pointy piece of metal between his shoulder blades. This one definitely was a sword, no question about it. A really awesome yet situationally stupid overcompensation joke popped into his head and Peter choked it back. He was only selectively stupid. "Oh, hi, there. Didn't see you."

"Move forward, into the light of the fire, if you please." Not only was plate armor more polite but he sounded more cultured as well. He hadn't removed his helmet but Peter had little hope of that happening just yet.

"Sure, no problem, no problem at all." The fire was where he wanted to be anyway, so Peter walked forward until he could see the men clustered around it. They were dirty and ragged, most with scraggly beards grown for convenience, not style. There were about twenty of them, all dressed in old-fashioned kind of armors. Further back, he could see tents and a string of horses. Everything was red and gold and someone had a serious hard on for lions. "Hey, guys. What's up?"

They understood his words but clearly didn't get his slang. That opened up some fun possibilities but he was more interested in the fact that most of these men appeared to be some kind of military unit. Also, they appeared to be stuck in the middle ages, which wasn't the best news in the world. Peter had a feeling that asking for some booze for his spaceship probably wouldn't go well.

The man in the full suit walked around him until he could see Peter's face. Holding his sword loosely but at at the ready, Full Suit asked, "What are you doing in these woods? What lands do you rule, Lord Star?"

"It's Star Lord, and I was lost and looking for civilization." As he spoke another man came up and started to pat him down. Peter winced when the man got a little rough with the Walkman but the guy didn't break it. He also didn't seem to realize that Peter's pistol was a weapon; he pulled it out and looked at it, then shoved it back in the holster. He did remove Peter's shoulder bag and take it to Full Suit, showing him the contents.

"Lost? Where are you from?" Full Suit asked, sounding like he was frowning.

"Thataway." Peter pointed a few degrees off where the ship was and hoped they didn't ask him about the geography.

Of course, Full Suit did, since he was out to ruin Peter's day. "From Oxcross?"

"No, small little hut on my own in the middle of nowhere." Peter hated not being able to lie better than that but he had literally nothing more to add. These guys were locals and knew the area.

"Where are you bound, Lord Quill?"

"Lor- oh, uh, Star Lord." He was pretty sure that these guys would be dicks about his not actually being nobility. It was pretty cool they were calling him by his other name, though. "Somewhere I can trade my ore." Peter tried his best make-friends smile. "Know where I can do that?"

"Depends on what you seek. Whose lands are you from?" Full Suit was not giving this up.

Peter decided that ignorance was the next best tactic to try. "Uh, the locals. You know. The guys? Around here?"

"The Lannisters?" Full Suit said it in a snotty voice that made Peter want to shoot him, because he talked like the bullies at school who made fun of the slow kids. Which made Peter the slow kid in this case with no protector in sight.

"Yeah, the Lannisters." Peter shouldn't have but he put the same inflection into his tone. "Them."

The men snickered and Peter had a bad feeling. "Then tell me," Full Suit said, "what is the Lannister heraldry?"

This required quick thinking, so of course it took him a second too long to come up with even a lame response. He remembered something about heraldry from the King Arthur stories but that wasn't helping right now. "Uh, how do I know that you know what their heraldry looks like?"

Full Suit laughed even louder and took off his helmet. Underneath was a disgustingly good looking guy, the kind of blond, noble look that gets all the babes in the movies. Shaking out white-gold hair, he said, "Because I am Jaime Lannister, eldest son of Lord Tywin Lannister."

"Oh." Peter made a last attempt at wit and hoped he was guessing right. "Then the Lannister heraldry is a red background with a big ole angry lion."

Jaime stared at him before laughing again but this time he'd lost the cruel edge to his voice. "Very good. Now that you have managed not to lie to me once, let's keep going. Except now, if I think you're lying to me, I'm going to have one of my men cut off a finger. One per lie."

Peter stared at him, trying to decide if this guy was for real. Then one of the men behind him grabbed his arm and dragged him to a tree truck. The thug pressed his hand flat against the truck. Three others joined him, grabbing Peter in a nightmare of big man-hands and some literally breath-taking B.O. "Hey! Hey!" Peter struggled but he was vastly outnumbered.

The second I see a blade, I'm pulling my gun. Peter put his hand on the butt of his pistol, not that he believed he'd get it out long enough to actually shoot the asshole with a girl's name.

"Now, where are you from? I have never heard of a Lord Star." Jaime asked.

"God, it's Star Lord, and it's a far away land called Terra!" Peter tried to sound tough but there was only so much tough he can manage when he was trying to keep all his fingers while his balls tried to crawl up inside of him from fear.

Jaime frowned and Peter prepared to try for a shot. "I've never heard of it." The asshole's eyes dropped to the front of the bag, noting the Ravager's symbol on it.

He didn't say, "off with his finger" so Peter merely babbled, "Yeah, new lands, far away, we're just getting over here to Lannister lands." Then he clamped his lips shut before he babbled his way into more trouble.

Jaime looked in the bag again and lifted out a piece of the scrap metal he'd grabbed this morning. Everyone watched in silence as the man considered it. "And does this ore come from there?"

"No, no-no-no. We trade for it. I need booze." Peter sighed when Jaime looked quizzically at him but he still had all his fingers so he smiled as he said, "Spirits. Liquor. Wine? Beer? Well," he amended with a wag of his head, "I need strong stuff. Stronger the better."

Jaime smiled and Peter got a bad feeling. "Why didn't you say you were here to trade first? We could have avoided this unpleasantness." The men holding him let go of him as Jaime hefted the bag. "I assume that this is a gift for my father? A tribute?"

Oh, you asshole. "Most of it. I do need a piece or two to show to potential buyers-"

"Nonsense. My father has all the fine wine you need and will be happy to trade for your ore." Jaime Lannister closed the bag decisively. "Tomorrow, I'll take you to see him."

Funny how he hated that he got exactly what he wanted. This place had better not be a dump.

After a night jammed into a spare bedroll and sleeping between two soldiers who smelled like they bathed in horse sweat and despair, Peter was tossed up on a horse behind one of the officers. This guy only smelled like he hadn't bathed in a while, which was a step up. When the horse took off, he nearly fell off backwards.

Everyone laughed at him, especially Lord Jaime-With-A-Girl's-Name. Peter thought about shooting him again but decided he probably shouldn't make that kind of decision without some coffee in his system first.

Mornings were rough enough without adding in horses and assholes, and Peter was so messed up he missed his first glimpse of Casterly Rock. He had to wait until they had cleared the trees and he could see the thing in its entirety.

Holy shit! Peter wasn't sure how he kept his mouth shut when he saw the towering fortress carved into rock. If you squinted and looked really closely, you could see the shape of the hill that had been there before they started cutting into it. Now, there were two mounds left, connected by a single stone bridge. The castle wasn't on top of the higher hump, it was inside it. Peter could see people walking in and out of it. Even better, a sprawling town spread away from it like a suburb.

Lord Jaime was recognized as they passed through town, where he was greeted with cheers. He at least acknowledged their praise with waves and smiles. Peter was willing to bet that none of them had actually talked to the lord and didn't know that he was a dick.

100% Grade-A Dick at that.

The men rode up into the first hump of the hill and dismounted, letting servants lead the horses away. Man, these guys were loaded if their horses have servants. As Peter considered what this could mean - he bet Yondu would be happy to come and relieve some of these people of their excess money - Lord Dick led him deeper into the castle.

They walked through carved hallways and caverns for a while before stopping at a door. When Jaime knocked, a man called, "Come in."

The man behind the door was tall and broad. Peter had to choke back a laugh because while the man was bald, he had grown out some crazy blond sideburns like some kind of deranged actor from an old-timey play. Then the man looked right at him and Peter didn't feel like laughing anymore. There was the same hard, ungiving look in his eyes that Yondu had and Peter prepared himself for a fight.

Oddly, they weren't meeting in a throne room but this was clearly this man's office. The nice space radiated functionality and discipline, from the rack of scrolls on one wall to the thick oak desk. The man behind it had that same feeling of stick-up-assness that Peter had come to dread in his time with the Ravagers. "Jaime. Is this our guest?

"Father, this is Star Lord Peter Quill, come to us from Terra." Jaime paused and added, "Or so he claims."

The lord of the keep turned stern green eyes on Peter and he wished he'd had a chance to shave that morning. He immediately repressed the urge: he shaved when he wanted, not for asshole lords. "Hey there." Peter offered a hand.

"Star Lord Quill, this is my father, Lord Tywin Lannister." Jaime had the look on his face that said Peter had stepped on his lines. Peter wondered how he could shit on them instead.

Lord Tywin eyed the hand like a snake. "I've not heard of the lands of Terra."

"You wouldn't, very far away." Peter knew he was smiling like a smug asshole but he couldn't stop because Jaime was 100% Dick and it appeared to be inherited from the men in his family.

"You are here to trade?" Tywin still hadn't taken his hand. Peter left it out there like a penis hanging out of an tuxedo at a rich person's party - firm and unwelcome.

"My ore for your spirits. Wine." Peter met the man's gaze, determined not to flinch. This guy didn't even have a Yata arrow.

Tywin stared at him for a long moment. "I'll have my smiths assess the ore. Tonight, you'll be our guest. Jaime, would you find Tyrion and have him show Star Lord Quill the castle?"

Jaime looked really unhappy at that and Peter decided that he liked Tyrion already. "Yes, Father."

It made Peter really uncomfortable that when Jaime said that to his father, it sounded like when Peter said "Yes, Yondu" to him.

He followed Jaime down several levels, hopelessly lost. Gradually, the dick stopped in front of another door and knocked. "Come in!" This voice was younger than Tywiener had been but just as bitchy.

Jaime opened the door, smiling. Peter noted it was a real smile, like Jaime was happy to be here. The kid in the room hopped down from the desk and came toward them with a weird rolling gait-

Not a kid. A dwarf.

Peter judged him to be a little younger than himself, with pale blond hair. He had a coarse face but a genuine smile as he saw Jaime. When he looked at Peter, eyes curious, Peter saw that one was green and one black. The kid wasn't nearly as handsome as Jaime and never would be but there was an honesty about him that was nice after all this smiling assholishness.

"Jaime, you're back. Who is our guest?" The dwarf grasped Jaime's hand firmly, and Jaime put a hand on his shoulder when they stood side by side.

"Tyrion, this is Star Lord Peter Quill. Star Lord Quill, this is my younger brother, Tyrion." Jaime's gaze was protective when he looked at Peter again, and the Ravager dialed back the guy's dick level to about 90%. Anyone who had a soft spot for their little brother like this couldn't be all bad.

"Call me Peter." He offered his hand and Tyrion shook it.

"Then I am Tyrion." The kid seemed a little taken aback but not upset about it.

"Why did not offer such to me, Peter?" Jaime asked.

Peter looked at him, wondering if he was taking offense. He didn't look like he was so Peter decided to be truthful and see where that got him. "I like Tyrion more."

Both brothers seemed startled, staring at Peter like he was some new creature. Peter wondered if everyone expected him to hate Tyrion because he didn't look like everyone else. Since he was eight, he'd been surrounded by people who didn't look like him or anyone else on the ship. It gave him a broader perspective.

Jaime recovered first. "Then I guess it's just as well that Father wants you to show him around the castle."

Tyrion didn't seem as happy. "Of course," he said politely, giving Jaime a frown that turned into a smile when he glanced back at Peter. "Would you like to go now? Or do you need to freshen up?"

Peter laughed. "Do I smell that badly of horse and sweaty man?"

Tyrion chuckled softly, as if he wasn't sure he should laugh. "A little, perhaps."

"Then how about you show me somewhere I can do that?" Peter always liked to kill two birds with one stone.

Tyrion showed him to a room where there was a bowl, water, and towels. It wasn't a shower but he washed his face, pits, and hands. He felt better already and even better than being clean, they left Jaime behind. Now that they were dick-free, Peter relaxed for the first time since slipping into the M-ship. Once he was ready, Tyrion started walking and touring.

The guy knew his family's history. Peter tuned most of it out - like usual - enjoying the castle itself and making appropriate noises at the right time. This worked right until Tyrion said, "My father meant to insult you by having me guide you."

"Yes- Wait, what?" Peter laughed. "Really? Because he got that totally wrong."

Tyrion gave him a look that hurt Peter's heart - yes, the part of him that Yondu had tried to crush out of him years ago, the part of him that started fights with bigger boys who killed little frogs who ain't done nothing. It was the look of someone who had been so kicked and beaten that he couldn't trust someone actually liking him.

"Come on, I'm told you guys have good wine here." Peter rubbed his mouth. "I need something to drink."