The ship was too quiet, just the hum of the generator keeping them idling in orbit over some planet while Drax and Gamora sussed out the situation for their next bounty. Groot was still just a baby and Peter was... well, the man was Peter, and that was all the justification that Rocket needed to be sitting at the table by himself.
A bottle of hard spirits kept him company enough, the dark blue coloration slightly off-putting but it still did its job: burning down his throat and leaving him with that buzz grinding away at the back of his mind. He tried to think, he'd done just how many shots of the stuff already? Too many, was what his body protested, but he was nowhere near his goal of passing out in a pitch-black drunken state.
Rocket could barely focus on the bottle, his eyes seeing nothing but glass gripped in his hand as he went to upend it again and was rewarded only with a few small drops of the harsh liquor. That didn't seem right, the bottle had been full when he'd started, hadn't it? Why was it already empty? He let it drop onto the table with a clatter, putting his head on his other arm with a low groan.
"Fuggin'... have t' get up an'." He felt a belch bubble through his throat, the release of pressure leaving him aching. "An' get anudder bottle of booze." That was the idea, anyway, but the execution left something to be desired as he pushed back from the table. Instead of the chair sliding back along the stainless steel like it was supposed to, it pitched backwards and sent the pitifully drunk mammal toppling back along with it.
"FUCK!" Rocket barely managed the word before he landed on his back, feeling a harsh jolt of pain racing up his spine. Okay, that hurt. That really fucking hurt. He hissed through his teeth as he rolled over as slowly as possible, barely noticing just how much the room was spinning. "Ugh, oh krag. Urrp." He pitched and felt his body reject all he'd had to drink in a body-wracking burst. They were going to be so mad at him when they came into the kitchen and saw this. It was like he'd just upended his entire digestive system onto the floor in a single go.
It took him a moment before he managed to get to his feet, wobbling unsteadily as he found one of the towels stocked in a cupboard. He didn't even bother cleaning up his mess properly, Rocket just threw the towel onto the spattered mess with the hopes no one stepped on it in the morning and the resolve that he'd clean it up himself. That seemed satisfying in and of itself, but that still left the monumental task of getting himself to bed.
Directions got confused easily when he was drunk off of his ass, the mammal could've sworn that his bedroom was just off the kitchen and closest to the bathroom. He found the bathroom no problem, at the very least, taking some time out of his search for bed to wash his face and rinse out his mouth of whatever particulates decided to cram their way between his chompers. He managed a look in the mirror and frowned at what he saw.
His grey face was a mess, the fur of his left cheek smushed up against his face and the other whiskers were askew. His fur was rumpled and his clothing was grease-stained with a few marks from his meal for the evening. His eyes were bloodshot and even with a dark mask across his eyes, he still saw the rings of lack of sleep puffing up the lower lids of his brown eyes. Even his expression looked glassy, like he was just barely there amidst everything else. "Heh. Y' look like shit, asshole." He slurred to the mirror and could've sworn that his reflection sneered back at him. "Yeh well... well fuck you too!" He shouted, perhaps a bit louder than necessary but that was satisfying in and of itself.
He barely got his bedroom door open in time, his vision was starting to blur and black out. He made something of a half-assed attempt to get out of his clothes, ending up with his shirt half hanging off of him and his shorts left in a pile on the floor. He didn't even notice the sound of snoring in the darkened room, or that the bed was in the wrong place, or even that he certainly smelled something that wasn't Groot. No, he sunk onto the bed, wrapped his body around itself, closed his eyes and went right to sleep.
-0-
Peter didn't know what it was that woke him up to stare at his bedroom ceiling. Something just didn't sit right with him and it wasn't until he rolled over and felt a furry lump in the bed next that he realized he had a guess. He stifled a swear behind clenched teeth as he jolted back, his sandy blond eyebrows pushing together as he frowned. He slowly peeled the sheet back and was met with the curled up form of his friend and teammate, Rocket.
Quill sucked in a breath and almost immediately regretted it. He hated to say it, but the mammal just outright stunk of booze. It was enough for a 'dull-nosed humie' like him to feel the palpable waves of the stuff coming off of Rocket's sleeping form. "Ugh. You have got to stop drinking so much, Ranger Rick." He frowned a bit as he shifted slightly out of the bed, stopping when he felt claws sinking into his arm.
Well, that sensation alone deserved another look, watching as Rocket pulled his arm down and used it for a pillow. Almost immediately, Rocket's mouth opened and he started to snore like the engine start-up of a kree warship. "Well. I was gonna leave ya alone, but I guess we're stuck in bed with each other until your drunk ass wakes up." Peter chuckled softly as he lay back down on the bed, head meeting the pillow and letting his exhaustion carry him back to sleep.
-0-
Something was off. Wrong. It forced itself into the back of Rocket's mind and then started crashing through him full force, leaving alarm bells and sirens in its wake. He was not alone in his bed. It wouldn't have surprised him to wake up next to someone unintended after a heavy night of drinking but the limb he currently had his face buried against was warm, pink and definitely smelled like leather and sweat. Rocket jolted upright almost as fast his name-sake, voice carrying loudly. "WHAT TH' KRUTACKIN' HELL?!"
Well, that exclamation got Peter awake, who immediately drew his arm back to himself with a wince, looking towards Rocket to see if the raccoon was furious. He was. Oh, he was. Rocket was in full froth, pacing on the bed and screaming about violating his personal space and how dare Peter get his stinky human arms all over him and he didn't swing that way for anyone, especially some dumb-ass human.
"Rocket."
"An' another thing is y' can't just get into another man's bed, Quill! I know yer ass is lonely as fuck but y' gotta give me some fuckin' credit here! I got standards an'-"
"Rocket, would you just."
"Yer gonna give me a heart attack one of these days an' I'll just have t' haunt ya and make y' feel like shit! That'd be good for your self esteem wouldn't it?!"
"Rocket. You're in my bed."
"An'... Wait. What?" That got Rocket to stop, blinking a few times down at the man. And it was all slowly clicking into place. How he'd stumbled through the room in the dark, how the bed was in the wrong spot, and just how sickeningly snuggly he'd been during the night. "O-oh." He said simply, jumping off of the bed.
"Oh? That's it? You start tearing me a new one just for sleeping in my own damn bed and the best you can come up with is 'oh'?"
"I said oh an' I mean oh. If ya want an apology... then yeh, I'm sorry I woke you up." Rocket said flatly, biting onto his lower lip. "I'm... I'm gonna go fer right now. I gotta clean up th' mess I made in th' kitchen before Drax and Gams get back." And with that, the procyon walked out the room, rather oblivious to the fact that he'd still left his clothes sitting around on Peter's floor.
"Hey! The hell am I supposed to do with your stinky clothes?" Peter called after, but the lack of response made him swear under his breath. "Asshole!"
-0-
The kitchen stunk, there was no two ways around it. And it was all Rocket's fault. His nose wrinkled as he moved the towel out of the way, haphazardly tossing it into the clothes hamper along with the other used rags and looked down at the mess. It'd stuck into the floor and it just. Urgh. It made his stomach want to do flips, so he could only imagine what it would be like for someone like Peter to waltz on in here and see it.
It took him a lot of effort: moving the stepladder into place near the sink, diluting the disinfectant into a bucket he filled with hot water, making sure that it was disinfectant and not pancake syrup (he'd had that happen before, the kitchen smelled like sticky sweetness for a week) and finally he was able to grab several rags and bring the result down to the floor.
That was how Rocket was when Peter strolled into the kitchen, looking freshly dressed for the day if not freshly showered. Still in just a pair of underwear and scrubbing the living daylights out of the floor beneath him, the rag working away the filth of whatever Rocket had managed to do during the night.
"Thought when you said you made a mess, I was going to find bottles all over the place. Not... y'know. Throw up." Peter said gently, grinning like a goofball when Rocket just glared up at him with an expression that said he'd be dead if he was anyone else. "If you need help, just lemme know or something. I'm starving in the meanwhile and I'm sure you are too."
Rocket was about to say something when a hollow noise wrung through his stomach, an empty gurgle that begged for something to be filling the mammal's gut. "Yeh. I could eat." He murmured from his spot on the floor, tail flicking as he pushed his hands down as hard as possible to get the staining out of the floor.
Quill clapped his hands with a huge grin, rubbing the calloused palms together as he turned towards the refrigerator. "Okay then! Let's see what we got: xandarian duck eggs, salazarian bacon, pancake mix, fresh aldarian tree syrup..." As the human talked, he loaded up his arms with whatever came to mind. Soon he looked like he should've had a cart or something underneath him, barely able to see out from around the large pile of food he'd decided to make for the pair of them.
He pivoted in a practiced dancer's step, booted feet hitting the ground as he waltzed over to the kitchen stove. Save for the fact that his foot found contact with where Rocket had been scrubbing and his leg came out from under him, catching the mammal in the chin before he could react, it would've all gone according to plan. But as it was, Rocket got a sore jaw and only watched as the produce flew upwards and landed all over the kitchen, spattering red eggs all over the floor with some of it even landing on Quill's coat and in Rocket's fur.
Rocket didn't know when his teeth started grinding against each other as he set his jaw, stepping carefully over to the fallen human with an evil, malevolent look in his eyes. He shoved the rag he'd been using just moments before into Quill's face, scowling. "Y' can clean up yer fuckin' mess. Fuck breakfast!" And with that Rocket turned on his heel and stormed towards the restroom.
-0-
A moment later, Peter heard loud cursing from the mammal coming from the bathroom along with the sound of rushing water. He let a frown decorate his face before shrugging his shoulders. Rocket's temper was always flaring up in the worst ways, but once he calmed down he'd definitely be wanting something to eat. Peter got an idea, grinning just a little bit as he put two of the rags under his feet after making sure they were wet with soapy water.
Once the bacon and sausage rounds were sizzling away in a pan, Quill started to dance. Just a slow shuffle at first but soon he was busting out moves that would put Elvis Presley to shame. He swung his left leg around, skidding across the floor as the leather of his jacket snapped against his body. It was the physical release of dancing that brought him the most happiness, not even keeping time with any sort of beat or even his music.
He fumbled for a moment as he reached for the tapedeck built into the wall before the sweet tones of the Jackson 5 blared their way through the kitchen. As the music reverberated, it was like it vibrated his entire being along with it, unable to stay still as he flipped pancakes, a little flourish as he put a fork through the bacon to plate them up and he couldn't possibly resist a little moment with the spatula as a microphone before using it to get the sausage up.
He was so lost in his own little world that he didn't notice Rocket coming into the kitchen, pushing one of the chairs out before climbing up onto it. At least, he didn't until the mammal cleared his throat as loudly as possible. "Y' gonna share somma that, Quill? Or am I diggin' in the fridge for food again?"
Peter had to admit that a shower had done the raccoon a lot of good. His fur was clean and brushed out, he didn't have noticeable bags under his eyes and it looked like he'd even taken a bit of extra time to trim his claws and find a shirt and pair of pants that weren't stained in some fashion. Probably to change by the end of the day, considering the mammal's habits of getting into the vents or in a control panel or just magically attract dirt. He swore that Rocket could attract dirt in a sterile environment just by standing in the middle of the room with a wrench in hand.
Either way, he plated up a couple pancakes and slices of bacon just for the raccoon, even getting out the fruit marmalade that he knew that Rocket liked. Just a little apology for the egg thing, in his own goofball way. Rocket looked down at the glass jar of mixed and crushed fruit before he grunted out a soft thanks and poured it over the top of his pancakes.
They both sat quietly, neither of them wanting to do much talking for fear that they'd let their tempers with each other flare up again. It didn't surprise Peter in the slightest that Rocket practically forced the food down his throat, stopping only long enough to take a drink of water now and again so that he could easily eat more. Less than five minutes passed before Rocket pushed the empty plate forward. "I'm gonna go work on th' engines or somethin'." Like that was all the mammal needed to say to make Quill understand. Don't come bother me for a while was the message hidden in those simple words.
"Well, alright. Hey, before you go." Quill started, regretting it when Rocket fixed him with a stare that just screamed that whatever Peter was about to say better be good. "D'ya maybe need a drinking buddy tonight? Keep you from overdoing it that bad again." He paused a moment. "Get you to your room all safe-like?"
Rocket's eyes narrowed just a bit before the procyon sighed out, then offered Peter one of the rarest gifts that the raccoon could give him: a slight smile. "Yeh, I could use someone to drink with. Drax ain't no fun, Gamora is just dangerous for m' health an... an' Groot's still jus' a baby."
The quiet way Rocket said that last one just spoke volumes about the relieved heart break he'd gotten over after Groot had started recovering. Everyone was pretty sure that the tree man had kept his memories despite the rather explosive way he'd gone out after the crash, but Rocket still thought of him as a toddler. Something small. Something that Rocket had to protect at all times.
"Cool. Cool." Peter said, putting a forkful of pancakes into his mouth. "Cool. Well, see ya t'night then."
"Yeh. T'night. An' y' better buy some better shit than that blue drink y' got."
-0-
"So what yer tellin' me is that you have been with at least two hunnerd women? An' all of 'em different?" Rocket's mouth was hanging open and he didn't care. Peter was telling him the most physically impossible thing in the universe.
"Yep! Two hundred women and not a single species was the same. Though I did go back to certain ones!" Peter grinned amiably, popping the bottle back into his mouth and taking a slow drink out of it. Rocket's fingers were laced around a large glass filled with some dark amber liquid that he'd been assured was Jack Daniels whiskey while Quill nursed something he'd called Rolling Rock. All these different drinks and they weren't even made up of the same stuff that most alien alcohol was, just some cruddy plant fermented in one way or another.
"You have got t' be fuckin' with me. There ain't no way that your sorry ass has ever landed more than one or two women at a time." Rocket scoffed. "I've been with ya at every bar we set house in an' you can barely go an evenin' without gettin' the stupid temporarily slapped out yer head!"
"That's cause I've stopped using The System." Quill said with a grin. "It was a cheat code to get my hands down any lady's pants and it just wasn't fair to be using on them." Every inch of Peter was just dripping with smug satisfaction at this point.
"System? You have a system. An' y' don't use it cause it made things too easy?" Rocket took a slow drink of his whiskey, an idea forming in his mind. Well, half of a half of an idea. "Alright. Let's see th' system."
"See it? Whatcha mean, Ranger Rick?"
"First, don't call me that. Second, use yer system on me. I can easily tell if yer absolutely full of shit." Rocket leaned in across the table, feeling that keen sort of buzz in the back of his head. He just fixed Peter with his best 'I'm waiting' stare, ready to laugh his ass off.
Peter coughed a bit, adjusting himself slightly in his chair. He ran a comb through his hair to bring the sandy blond locks into some sort of tidy and curled order. There was a few moments of unsteady silence between the pair of them as Quill fixed himself up to look nicer than he normally did.
And then he leaned over. "Well, hey there, miss." That was all he got out before Rocket busted out laughing.
"Oh come on! Yer not even going to do me th' treat of callin' me like I am? We're not doin' a little roleplay here. Take it from the top, like y' actually mean it." Rocket grinned. "Unless y' wanna admit y' just can't do it."
"Hey, shut up! All right, all right, all right." Quill rubbed at his forehead. "Asshole. I'll show you." Quill closed his eyes a moment, trying to get his focus. He breathed out slowly through his nose before he opened his eyes, meeting the pale blues with Rocket's milk-chocolate browns.
"You should let me get you your next drink." Quill said, sliding in closer to Rocket's side via pushing his chair closer. His fingers eased around Rocket's, taking the glass from him gently. He smiled as he grabbed the bottle of Jack from nearby, pouring it over the ice in the raccoon's glass. "Now, how about you just tell me what's on your mind right now. What makes you, you."
-0-
Rocket was doing his level best to control his breathing, his whiskers twitching subtly. There was an inexpressible tight hollow in his chest as Quill got close. Rather uncomfortably close. Quill's arm slung around his shoulders and he got that scent of leather close to his snout. He brushed off the heat rising to his cheeks as little more than the alcohol getting to him.
"Well, if you're not going to talk, then I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself." Peter took a sip of his drink, grinning. "I'm Peter Quill. The Star Lord. And the best looking Terran on this side of the known galaxy. You might've heard of me after I saved the galaxy?"
"Quill, I know who ya are, y' don't have to exactly-"
"Oh? Well, if you know who I am then I won't need any introduction and this was all just me being a little silly. How about this then." Quill turned around, taking Rocket's hands into his. "How about you and me, we go somewhere a little quieter with a bottle of whatever you want to drink. Go see the stars a little more up close and personal?"
Rocket's breathing hitched in his chest. Dammit, Quill was actually really good at this. It was almost as if he were getting a little turned on by how smooth the idiot could actually be. Except that's exactly what it was, the back of his mind told him. He felt uncomfortable around the pants and he didn't have to look down to know why. Just an imperceptible shift and Quill never would notice it.
"So whaddya say? Shall we get going? Take care of each other while the stars flick by? I guarantee you haven't experienced anything unless you're making love amid the stars."
Rocket practically threw the hands off of his, knowing that his fur was up and he was growling a little low in his throat. "Jus'... jus' stop Quill!" He stood up in his chair. "I... Ergh!" He pitched himself forward and kissed the human on the cheek. He immediately regretted it when he felt Quill's laughter.
"Rocket, what's..." Quill started, feeling Rocket shaking against him. The kiss didn't bother him so much, it was how Rocket was behaving about doing it.
"Yer... yer a damn attractive guy an'. An' yer so successful." The raccoon breathed out. "An' what do I got to show. Y' don't need anyone like me bein' in this damn room." Rocket was working himself up into a fury and all Quill could do was watch. "Y'know what it's like, havin' jus' assholes for company all the time? It's the most stable thing I've ever had. An'. An' then you get all smooth and comfortable with yerself an' y' don't even pitch a fit over me askin' y' to do yer thing. An'. An' it just. It just." Rocket paused for a moment, trying to suck down a breath of air past the emotions bubbling out in a flow. "I can't be doin' this shit. Y' win yer damn bet, kay? Y' successfully made me wanna bed ya an' cuddle ya an' all this other CRAP on top of this other crap. Good job."
Rocket grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the table, fixing Quill with another look before rushing off to his room. He didn't even get to see how Quill just sat back in his chair, frowning before putting his own bottle to his lips before sighing out 'idiot' under his breath.