::The Shower::

Description: Alternatively, the day Yondu intervened. "Ravagers" series. T for strong language and implied nudity.

I know that this series hasn't really caught fire with my readers but I really enjoy writing it, and that's what really matters. I do apologize again for the lack of updates to my other stories. I should get some more updates out soon(ish).

Enjoy! :)

(Layla)

I don't know what you've heard about me at this point, so I'll give you a brief introduction. My name is Layla, don't ask about my last name as there is no possible way for you to pronounce it. I grew up on Xandar with my parents and my brother. And, I am now a M-ship engineer for the Ravagers.

I don't say I'm a Ravager for a few reasons. One, I'm not red coat official. Two, actually this is probably the biggest reason, I'm the only woman that the Captain has ever hired. If I was officially made a Ravager, I'm pretty sure that the guys would give me a lot more crap than they already do. One thing you can probably tell about the Ravagers just by looking at them is that they're very misogynistic. That is to say, in simpler terms, very sexist. Half of them look at me as some sort of object, others make me do extra work, a large group of them I'm afraid will jump me at any given opportunity, and the rest pretend that I don't exist. One of the few exceptions, and by few I mean maybe four people, is Kraglin. One wouldn't really think he's a nice guy by looking at him, but he stands up for me around the rest of the Ravagers. He's even helped me save face around the Captain a few times, which I can't thank him enough for. He tells me that he grew up with sisters, so he understands that I have my good and bad days. I really appreciate that.

So yeah, I'm pretty much just eye candy around the guys on the Eclector. Doesn't help that I wear tank tops so I don't get sleeves dirty when I'm working. All the guys just stare, (don't know why, 'cause I really don't have much of breasts to speak of), and they just kind of gawk at me while I'm working. It's not so bad though, as it could be worse. I could be stuck at home, living my life like-

-I am not going to get into that. Nope. I agreed to join Yondu's crew to get away from that kind of thinking…

In any case, this story begins near the very beginning of my time on the Eclector. I was still new to the environment, always getting lost and showing up late to meetings because I misjudged the time it would take to get there. The Eclector is big. It's one of the largest ships I have ever seen. Getting from the hanger bay, or sometimes even the engine room, all the way up to the meeting rooms is a long trek. It took me a while to memorize the multiple hallways and paths to take to get to the main areas. The recreation room, the food room (because I can't bring myself to call that dump a kitchen), the meeting room, the crew sleeping quarters, and the shower hall were all places I needed to be able to find after the first few days.

So, in this new environment with this great merry band of sexist men, I found myself in awkward situations right from the very start. Wanting to prove myself capable of taking care of myself, I tried not to bring anyone into it. Kraglin asked a few times on certain occasions if I had told Yondu about the occurrences between myself and the crew, and I told him vaguely that no, I hadn't. I didn't want to be the helpless woman that depended on the scary boss to solve all of my problems, as if he would even care. At least, that was the excuse I made to myself. As far as I knew, the Captain was oblivious to the issues I was facing.

What are some of these issues you might ask? There were several reoccurring ones. For example: I couldn't go to bed at the time everyone else did without one of the crew trying to pull me into his bunk. I found myself avoiding this problem quickly by setting up a hammock in the hanger bay to avoid my quarters entirely. I couldn't ever ask for help, ever, because they would blow it way out of proportion and say that I was just a useless woman that should never have been allowed aboard. I rectified this problem by just attempting everything I could to solve whatever problem I was facing. It took hours sometimes, when it would have taken minutes if they had helped me. There were some minor comments about me cooking, or cleaning, because that was women's work, but I could deal with that. The worst thing that I couldn't deal with was what happened in the shower hall.

"Hey sweet stuff, how about you and I share a stall?"

I screamed. I'll admit, it freaked me out and I panicked. There was a group of people just standing behind me watching me shower! I threw things at them, (Like a maniac, mind you, I was not sane in this moment. I dare say I think I tried to throw a bench at one point…). I grabbed a towel to wrap around me, and I ran away. It wasn't until I got back to my quarters, (after dodging several Ravagers in my way), that I realized I had no clothes to change into.

I sat on my cot in privacy, soaking wet and wrapped in my towel. I was cold, miserable, and furious. Up to this point in my life, no man had ever seen me naked. I felt violated (and rightfully so!), and I didn't know how I could face anyone again.

This happened a number of times before I finally gave up on showering. The shower hall was just a line of stalls with showerheads. There were no privacy curtains, so it was impossible to Ravager-proof my shower time. I didn't give up without a fight though, and I tried many different ways to secure my privacy. I used towels to block the open stall, but people just took them down or peaked around them. I tried taking showers at odd times to avoid people, but they still managed to find out and make a peepshow out of me! I was at my wits end! So, I stopped showering. I didn't know what else to do…

I started to really stink after about a week. My hair was greasy, and not just from natural oil production. I had black engine grease caked in my hair. It was really, really disgusting. My skin was oily, itchy, and dirt covered. The only relief I could have was when I washed my hands. I could wash away the dirt and grime up to my shoulders, but that hardly did much more than make me look a little bit cleaner. I still felt nasty. I smelled terrible. But I refused to shower with everyone watching me!

I was at a loss. I was scared, and I was terribly self-conscious about the way I smelled.

It was at this point, greasy, dirty, stinky, and overwhelmed that the Captain finally found out about the situation... or at least part of it.

"Girl, you f*cking stink." Those were the first words that the Captain directed at me since the day he first hired me. "Why do you smell like that?"

I couldn't look at him. I was too embarrassed. I just stared at the floor under my feet. Every ounce of my body was filled with pent up anger and frustration, and the need to cry. I'm a girl! So sue me if I need to cry after all that I have been through! "Sorry, I haven't had the time to shower in a while…" My answer was crap, but it was all I could get out without my voice trembling.

Yondu gave me a once over, his red eyes boring into me as he scrutinized my appearance. "Make time." He finally said, walking away. "You look like hell."

I wanted to cry. I watched him as he left, my eyes watering and my hands clenched into fists. I should have just told him what was going on, but I was too afraid. I realized I was more afraid of him firing me than the possibility of one of the Ravagers taking advantage of me.

The Ravagers would surely be waiting for me to take a shower, and word would quickly spread once I did. It was like a game to them. I had to take a shower sooner or later, Yondu himself specifically told me to. So, what could I do?

I took a shower.

I dropped my bag of clean clothes at the edge of the stall and used a towel hook and a nail to hang a towel over the stall opening. It wasn't much, but it was something. It wasn't long before I started hearing the catcalls and comments coming from behind me as I scrubbed grease out of my hair. I tried to ignore it, but as the comments continued I felt my lip start to tremble, and I'd be lying if I said all the water on my cheeks came from the showerhead.

Why are they doing this? They have magazines, why must they torture me? I took a shaky breath and wiped away some of the tears spilling from my eyes.

It was as I finished washing up, turning around to grab my towel (that was now on the ground, thanks to some horny Ravager), that I saw Yondu. He was half undressed, his shirt still in his hand and a towel slung over his shoulder. And he just stared. And by stare, I don't mean the way everyone else was. He looked at the scene in disgust.

But he said nothing. He just turned around and left.

I was humiliated…

The next day, there was a ship-wide broadcast. I was cleaning out an exhaust pipe when the image splayed across every console in the room. My arms were blackened up to my elbows, and I was sweaty, but I hauled myself up to watch the message with everyone else. I could hear murmurs of confusion, and had to squeeze past a few taller guys to get a good view of what was going on, and when I came into view of the display I was equally befuddled.

The image was of a shower stall, complete with a curtain.

"Now, ya'll listen up, 'cuz I ain't repeating myself." Came Yondu's voice from the speaker. "As ya'll may or may not be aware of, I don't give out special privileges to any of you. Ya'll get the same treatment that anyone else does. But, recent events have forced my hand on a damn serious issue." At this point, the view swiveled around to show Yondu's face. Kraglin was in the background putting away some tools, (apparently he was the one to install the curtain), and he glanced up as the Captain spoke up again, his eyes showing clear disgust. "Ya'll been peeping on, or should I say f*cking sexually harassing the one damn woman I've ever hired!"

I gulped, feeling several sets of eyes glance over at me. Somewhere behind me I could hear several utterances of, "You f*cking snitch." My hands started to tremble, and looking back it was for no apparent reason. No one was going to lay a hand on me when Yondu looked that peeved.

"Since none of you could keep it in your damn pants, I've had to set up some rules regarding this particular shower." He handed the camera over to Kraglin and backed up so both he and the shower were completely visible. "This shower stall-" he pointed behind him, "-is now the f*cking sole property of Layla. She is the only one who can use it, clean it, hell-she's the only one allowed within three feet of it!" Yondu glowered. "And if I ever find out that any of you are breaking these rules, not only am I going to kick your asses, I'm going to make you pay her for it. If you're going to treat her like a damn stripper, you're going to pay her like the best damn stripper you've ever seen!" he paused briefly, biting his lip as he looked around in annoyance. "Now, I won't pretend to know exactly who has or hasn't taken part in this over these past few weeks, but those that I saw in the shower hall last night (you know who you are, and don't think I don't know) report to the briefing room in five minutes. And if you don't get your sorry asses up here in time, you can kiss your jobs goodbye. And believe me, that would be the least of your problems." With that, the ship-wide broadcast cut off.

There was a moment of stillness, in which I felt like I couldn't breathe. Everyone around me was quiet, not moving, in a state of shock at what they had heard. Then, it was like a switch, three men bolted for the door, leaving their work behind them to save their jobs, and the rest of the people surrounding me took a few steps away.

It was like I had the plague. Weeks went by before anyone would go near me. I took my orders directly from Kraglin, and, other than him, none of the other crewmembers spoke to me. It was odd. It was almost like being a ghost: completely invisible.

However, it took me a few days before I dared go near my newly assigned shower stall. Something about the whole situation felt unreal, and it took me being drenched by an overturned bucket of mop water before I decided to test it out.

From what I could hear, there was only one other person in the shower hall, whistling to himself as steam rose from his stall. I passed by, my head turned away carefully to avoid seeing things I didn't want to, and I slipped behind the one curtain in the entire room. Closing the curtain carefully behind me, I took a glance around the stall. As it turned out, the curtain wasn't the only new installment. In addition to the newfound privacy, there was shelf, a bench, and a towel rack. Compared to every other aspect of the Eclector, it was lavish. The stall itself was scrubbed spotless, no longer covered mildew. After weeks of living in the squalor of the Ravagers ship it looked like paradise.

I took the longest, hottest shower I had since joining the crew, and I enjoyed every second of it. Coming out of the stall I felt clean and refreshed, dressed in clean clothes and warm. I wrapped my towel around my hair and twisted it on top of my head as I emerged from my little paradise. I smiled sadly, wishing I could stay longer, but I still had a job to do.

As I looked up from the floor, I came face to face with Yondu. The way I floundered, I suspect I looked like a fish. He was as I saw him the last time I was in the shower, shirtless, only this time around he was wet. He was toweling down slowly, leaning up against a support beam, watching me as if he had been waiting for me to emerge (as was probably the case). He gave me a once over, quickly, and then nodded as if to himself.

"Have they been leaving you alone?" He asked, tossing his towel over his shoulder as he crossed his arms over his chest. He stared at me as I slowly processed the simple question, and raised an eyebrow when it suddenly clicked in my head and I nodded. He grunted in approval, looking down at the floor before he spoke again. When he looked up his gaze was harder. "You shoulda told me what was going on. I could have put a stop to it at the very beginning." He said, his crimson eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you say anything?"

I was torn between telling him the truth and telling him a half-truth. On the one hand I had reached the end of my ability to handle the situation alone, and I had convinced myself that bringing it up to my boss would not change anything. The full truth however was that I was more afraid of Yondu than anyone else. I was afraid of what he could possibly say or do to me if I complained even a little about my situation. Would he dump me off at the nearest planet for bringing it up? Would he tell me that I was being unreasonable, and that my complaint was stupid? Would he call me a b*tch like all the other men did on this ship? I had no idea of knowing what he'd do. I certainly didn't think that he would go out of his way to do what he did, and scare the crap out of everyone who ever peeped on me in the shower.

"I-uh…" I stuttered, unable to find my voice. I wanted to lie, to act like an idiot and pretend that the thought had never crossed my mind. I was unsure if the truth would offend him in some way, and if it didn't I was afraid that he'd think I was a coward. I was a cowered, actually. I held my own in situations I was familiar with, but I was completely out of my element. I was not confident that I would say the right thing.

I pulled my towel off of my head, stalling my answer as I combed my fingers through my hair.

Don't let Yondu fool you. He can be very patient when he want's to be. He's also very perceptive. I can't count how many times he's surprised me with his ability to read people like an open book. At this time I didn't know him well enough to realize these two important things. When he sighed through his nose and arched an eyebrow at me I thought he was angry that I was taking too long. So, I just spat it out.

"I'm scared of you! Okay?"

His second eyebrow jumped up to meet the other one.

I couldn't look at him. Words just kept tumbling out of my mouth, half of them I don't even remember. "I joined your crew to escape a bad situation and I didn't realize how terrified I was of you until it was too late! I've only been here a month and I'm scared out of my mind! Of everything! Of everyone! I work nonstop in the engine room so I can avoid people, and I still end up getting groped and harassed. I can't do anything about it because I don't know what to do!"

I stopped, out of breath, and I felt my face go red. I was so embarrassed, and afraid-terribly afraid of what he would do next.

I waited for a solid minute, and then he smirked.

"You'd be stupid to not be afraid." He said simply, throwing his towel over his shoulder as he stepped forward. I tensed as he grabbed of my hands, pulling them up between us and forming them into a closed fists. "Now, this is what ya do if someone does something you don't like." He said, adjusting my fingers minutely before holding onto my wrist. "Bring your arms up like this," my fist was pulled up closer to my face, the other floating just below it, in a defensive position, "then extend," he pulled my arm forward, turning it to follow through with the mock-punch, "and break their f*cking nose."

When he let go I tested the motion cautiously, noticing his smirk fell and he became a little more serious. My heart jumped into my throat at his next words.

"I made a mistake hiring you." At my petrified look he rolled his eyes, "Not you as a person, I mean you as a woman." He clarified. I did not feel any better, but he continued. "I wasn't prepared to take a woman on as a member of my crew. Hadn't even thought about what kind of changes I would have to make just to accommodate having one onboard." He sighed through his nose again, looking just a bit annoyed. Lines creased his forehead and around his mouth, adding to his normally aggravated appearance. "I suppose I need to handle this now. Better late than never I guess." He said, as if to himself.

Finding my voice again, I brought up my greatest concern. "Are you going to get rid of me?" I picked up my towel, which I had dropped when he grabbed my hands. Distractedly, my subconscious not wanting to hear the answer, I thought about how warm his hands had been. I don't know why it had surprised me. I guess I just expected he'd be as cold as he was fearsome.

"What? No!" The Captain rolled his eyes at me. "Don't be an idiot. Idiots grate on my nerves." He growled. "You're the best mechanic I've hired in ages! I'm not about to get rid of you just because you've become a slight inconvenience." At this he looked at me pointedly. "I ain't without reason, girl. You don't have to take care of everything on your own if you can't. Know your limits, and when it is you need to ask for help." I nodded, prompting a nod from him as well.

He turned away, grabbing his few things from the ground in one smooth motion as he headed to the end of the shower hall. At the door he stopped, his hand grasping the doorframe as he glanced down the corridor outside. His fingers tapped rhythmically on the frame for a brief moment before he looked back at me over his bare shoulder. "I'm moving you to the officers' bunk hall, that way Kraglin and I can keep an eye on you." And with that, he left. No detailed instructions as to when or where I would be going. No reprimand for not being able to take care of everything on my own. I was shocked. A little overwhelmed with gratitude, really.

Grabbing my pile of dirty clothes, I darted for the door to catch up to him before he disappeared. As I emerged from the shower hall I could see him half way down the corridor. "Thank-you!" I called out to him. Whether he knew it or not it wasn't just a comment of gratitude for the steps he was taking to make the ship a safer place for me. It was the first time I had been able to thank him for hiring me, and taking me away from the awful place I once called home.

"Get back to work!" was his only reply.

Working with the Ravagers was far from perfect, but from this point on I knew Yondu, despite his hard exterior, had my back. That alone made me feel safer.

Leave a Review! :)