Quill's always had a big mouth.
Since they'd first chipped him with universal translator, the kid wouldn't stop A) whining about being taken away from his momma (who'd, Yondu had a chance to find out later, already died when they picked him up) and B) badmouthing the entire crew. There wasn't much Yondu could've done about that, honestly. It was even amusing at some point, to see Quill squeezing into tight places in the vents and up inbetween pipes — aiming spots only his small hide would fit — and throw stuff at enraged Ravagers that had a misfortune passing by his hiding spot, providing much entertainment altogether for the Centaurian watching it from the control room.
He didn't mind Quill's shenanigans, as long as they weren't directed towards Yondu's patience. Even in these cases, even when being threatened to be eaten more times than he said his own name, Quill was still Quill. Stubborn, energetic, and stupidly soft-hearted. The last one didn't go to the Ravagers much, because Quill's sarcasm was always at service and Yondu was really the only one to ever witness the other side of that plate. Well, him and Kraglin that is...
As he grew, through a lanky teenager to a young adult, his mouth blossomed in creativity of offenses (Yondu still didn't know if he should be proud of the boy talking Ravager) and many times it fried the mission they were on more than it should have, and sometimes it was too close, especially for Peter, so he had to take action to save both their asses more often than he should admit.
No punishment could put the kid into submission, though. Yondu had really tried everything. From threats over chores to depriving ravaging and leaving him on the ship. He even went so far as to beat his ass (literally) after Quill tried joyriding away with his M-ship, taking away Yondu's figurines from the Eclector's control console with him. Upon asking later that evening, when the boy was sulking in his bunk curled up in a ball (a sight over which Yondu did not feel a tug of guilt in his black heart), Quill had the audacity to accuse his Captain of not docking on the nearest planet to buy new batteries for his Walkman as he'd promised. Yondu seethed how he had promised nothing, to which Quill hit him with a pillow hard and the space pirate roughly shoved his face into the mattress.
He did dock to buy new batteries first thing tomorrow, though.
But if Quill had a big mouth, he had an even bigger stomach.
That kid could literally eat everything. It took him a while to adjust to space meal assortment, but right after he did, there wasn't a damn planet they hadn't landed on where Quill wouldn't steal various delicacy junk and proceeded to stuff himself with it back on the ship. With such appetite, he'd eat himself before the crew could even get him.
Not only that, but as he grew in size, his appetite seemed to grow with him. Yondu didn't have experience with kids and he found himself wondering where he had gone wrong with the boy so many times that he'd stopped counting.
Quill hit his absolute climax when he was twenty five.
He'd been to Contraxia only once before that, when he was seventeen. Yondu didn't want him near that planet until he was capable of taking care of himself properly, seeing as Contraxia was a favored gathering for Ravager clans. That, and an incident that occurred during their last visit made Yondu high-tail it outta there, legitimately dragging Quill after him, as all 'eat you' threats suddenly came to life when some Sakaaran skunks decided to test that Terran theory. They got an arrow and Quill got to keep his miserable little life. Yondu convinced himself he couldn't care less if the Terran didn't make it out of there.
Then why did he check on his bunk three times that night to assure himself the kid was still alive and breathing?
Now Yondu wasn't all that concerned, seeing as Quill was basically a young man now, even though still being recklessly dumb at times, so they were okay to stop by. The occasion was a recent heist that made them not really knowing what to do with all those units they got. It was Tullk's idea to throw a really wasteful party, to which there was no complaint at all. The Iron Lotus had a separate hall for feasts with long-ass table which was in no time filled with nourishment and junk food of all kinds, from many different planets, and Yondu settled down with a thought that this wasn't a bad idea after all.
Leaving Quill to keep an eye on the feast while they went out short term to make some dealings with other Ravagers, however, was.
Because as soon as he came back (the crew got hypnotized away by android gals and were wasting the remaining units for their own private pleasure), he knew it was a bad idea. The key word is ''was''.
The moaning he heard from the hallway, which got him to prolong his already long strides and when he did reach the hall doorframe, he instantly froze in his step.
The table was good twenty feet in length, providing all a pack of starved Ravagers could ask for. Fruit, drinks, animals, shots... a real savage feast. Everything was just as it was when he'd left, but one thing.
In the bare center of the table was a huge headless roasted lurlorach, big enough to overgrow Quill when standing on back two legs, and Quill grew taller than Yondu. (A fact which Yondu didn't like for some reason.) Yondu distinctively remembered a rich brown color of meat and mind-enveloping smell it spread around, turning any reasonable man into a savage instinct-ridden beast. He silently vowed to be the first one to cut through it.
Now all he could see were huge bones, shiny from fat with slimy pieces of skin scattered around them. Even vegetables that were neatly lined around it were gone. Yondu only had to look down to see why.
On pile-supported floor in front of the table was Peter. He was laying on his back, arms and legs spread apart, long coat sprawled under him, moaning like that one time when he had a flu, and Yondu had to all but baby him to make him shut up. His forehead was pulled into a frown and he had grease stains around his mouth that shone on his neatly-shaven beard. His stomach was grumbling and Yondu could've sworn it wasn't that big when he'd left.
„Quill?" he called quietly, the shivering in his voice barely noticeable, as if his brain tried to comprehend the fact that he'd just connected in his brain.
The thing on the floor moaned again, louder, not looking at him.
„What d'ya do, Quill?" Yondu kept calmness in his voice successfully, surprising himself. He knew the answer, as it was bluntly laughing at his face right in front of his eyes, but he still needed to hear it from the boy.
„Your turkey's so gooooood..." Peter's moaning was nearly incomprehensible in his efforts to squeeze out enough air to speak.
„Ya ate a whole damn lurlorach?" The Centaurian finally managed a decent yell, letting anger and surprise mix in it, still not believing what kind of monster he had in his crew.
„Tsk-tsk, too complicated, turkey's better", Quill, waved his hand off nonchalantly and half-heartedly before thumping it back on the floor and releasing a loud, undignified belch.
Yondu was above him in two seconds, leaning over the half-dead Terran. „Give me a reason why I shouldn't pierce yer stomach with th' arrow right now."
Impuslively, Quill dropped a hand against his stomach. „You should't 've let me eat the whole turkey", he groaned, as his stomach grumbled again.
„Gerrup", Yondu nudged him with a toe of his boot, and when the Terran didn't move, he reached down and roughly pulled him up, being forced to use all his strength since Peter wasn't very helpful. „Quit stallin' boy and stand on yer feet!"
Quill made a face, but luckily didn't puke, instead only blowing out a smaller belch, acting like he was completely and utterly hammered. He threw his arm around Yondu's shoulders for balance, the latter having his arm around his back to support him. Even as Yondu was shorter, he was still the stronger of the two, easily maneuvering his Protégé to arrange the weight.
„Ye finally outdone yerself, boy", Yondu mumbled, leading him towards a row of soft-fabriced chairs against the wall and dropping him unceremoniously in one of them. Peter whined, leaning backwards and resting his hands on his stomach. Yondu paused to observe him. Since he'd first started to grow beard in the age of nineteen, Quill had always kept it annoyingly same; mustache and a short stubble crawling up to meet the sideburns. His red-brown curls grew much too long. He needs a haircut. Well, Yondu was ready to shave his head with no remorse to cover the anger he was feeling right now.
The Eclector Captain folded his arms across his chest, piercing the Terran with crimson gaze. Not that he'd registered it, with his arms squeezed shut in tortured frown as his stomach momentarily demonstrated a whale's call. „Speak up, boy", the Centaurian barked. „Or yer the next one on the menu."
„I'll buy you a new turkey."
„Not good enough."
„I was hungry", this time, Quill did open his green eyes to counter Yondu's.
„Not as hungry as my crew's gonna be for Terran flesh."
Peter slurred something Yondu didn't pick up and didn't bother to.
„I've no idea what goes on around that moronic head of yers, although I doubt anythin' ever happens, but whatever hells of th' universe made ya do this boy? Ravagers got a code."
„Ain't that code to steal from everybody?"
A short, sharp whistle and an arrow against his pained stomach, shut him up immediately and Quill closed his chatterbox firmly, locking his big green eyes against his Captain's.
„Ya know I oughta cut ya from groin to throat for what ya did here", Yondu spoke slowly, while Peter forgot how to breathe, "and then ya'd feel all the same 'bout whether ya did or didn't eat that lurlorach. And if any otha' member of th' crew found ya...", he pointed a calloused blue finger at the sitting young man in front of him who tried his utmost to take as shallow breaths as possible, eyeing the Yaka arrow like it's a revolting insect crawling up his abdomen.
Yondu lowered his forefinger after an effective pause. „... it might've actually been th' case." A high pitched whistle and the arrow obediently retreated back under the Ravager's coat. Despite the recent panic, that was what Quill frankly expected.
What he didn't expect was the next.
„Which is why yer gonna get yer ass up right now and go order anotha lurlorach and ya will pay it with your share of th' bounty. And then yer gonna bring it here yerself no matter how big and heavy it is. If ya drop it, I'll be sure to notify th' crew 'bout what ye've done and there'll be no arrow of mine t' stop them from doin' whatever the hell they feel like doin' with you. Yer banned from touchin' anything on this table for the rest of the evening, and then after we're back on the Eclector, which is probably gonna be come mornin', yer gonna get a rag in yer hands and clean up all the midship bay vents, including the ducts above 'em."
Yondu was satisfied to notice how the boy's eyes got bigger and bigger as he listed on, catching that glimmer of disbelief and comical betrayal, which he always had whenever he was banned from going ravaging after performing a dense stunt. Yondu kept his voice rolling sweetly down his tongue, as if he was reading a shopping list, knowing that Quill knew he was doing it on purpose, craving the helpless look in the boy's eyes. Where'd your sarcasm go, boy?
„Y-you can't be serious", Peter countered in a whiny voice (which he used when he was a kid to try and get away with whatever he'd done) straight away when Yondu was finished, and the Centaurian would be surprised if he didn't. „I don't fit into the vents anymore."
The Eclector's Captain leaned forward, rising his eyebrows. „None of this was a proposal, Quill."
When Quill didn't move right away, Yondu simply encouraged him with a little whistle and Peter bolted up on his feet in no time, staggering across the hall with his belly sticking out comically. „D' ya need me to give ya coordinates, boy? Get goin'!" As he watched the boy scramble behind door to the hallway, Yondu hadn't realized a small smile pulled at his lips until five seconds later.
Over ten hours had passed and the Eclector was silently floating the deep space, the only sound a monotone rumble of the engines. And that wasn't typical. There was always a chatter of the crew, a roar of laughter, a turmoil of fist fights. Always but when the crew was drunk-sleeping, which was currently the case. And it was one of those conceivably rare moments when Yondu could fall asleep without fearing of being stabbed in the face in the middle of the night.
Only he didn't sleep. He didn't drink back there either. Well, not as much as the rest of them... There was a certain rambunctious crew member he needed to keep an eye on.
Surprisingly, but not unexpectedly, Peter did everything Yondu had threatened him to do back in the dining hall of the Iron Lotus, including the rug work. He observed his legs sticking out of the vent in the hallway while sitting in the observation room, laughing at the screen in a way he hadn't laughed for years, and he reluctantly realized that, indeed, the only one who could ever get him to laugh that way will be Peter.
Now he was striding the silent corridors, his feet the only source of sound in seemingly completely empty ship. That thought forced a melancholic wave over him, and he had to muster all of his will to keep walking. Sentiment... ever since the boy was picked up on Terra, he was probing at Yondu's nerves, testing his limits. May the stars save him if Horuz was right...
He stopped, reaching certain door and looked at them. Honestly, there was nothing to look at, seeing as the door were windowless, but a little Q in the bottom corner made them stand out from the others. The Centaurian remembered seeing tiny Terran figure crouching in front of them, tongue sticking out in effort to carve the letter in with a knife. Quill'd received a tongue lashing from Yondu, but could see something else flickering in those crimson eyes, even though he never managed to distinct what exactly.
Yondu reached over to type an access code to the room and quietly opened the door.
Even before he could see anything, he heard Quill's stupid music quietly emerging from the speakers that were probably hanging around his neck.
The boy — the man, actually, seeing as he was twenty-frickin'-five (''Stop growin' so fast, boy...'') — was sprawled across his bed on his stomach, completely exhausted from today's chores, head facing sideways, blanket kicked back. The Walkman was laying next to him, trapped loosely under one of Peter's hands. Soft snores were mixing with mild sounds of Quill's headphones that were indeed stranded around his neck, crooked in weird angle. Yondu rolled his eyes and, led by the corridor light and a dim led light stretching thinly on two parallel walls of the room, walked over to the bed. He gently lifted Quill's head with one hand, minding not to wake him up and carefully slid yellow headphones over his head with the other. It'd do no one no good if Quill strangled himself in sleep, Yondu muttered in his head. Besides, he really didn't want to cope with the boy's whining once he realized he's crushed his beloved headphones in his sleep. Yondu wouldn't hear the end of his complaints until he found new ones, which was highly unlikely.
The Terran stirred, inhaling deeply and opening his eyes in two unfocused slits. Yondu, experienced in what he had to do, curved his fingers around Quill's head, softly curling and uncurling them, massaging his scalp. It's an old trick he's figured by himself during one of Quill's sick days back when he was a kid. Yondu would give him couple of minutes hair petting and he was out like a light bulb.
Peter stretched, still half asleep, and smiled in his REM phase enjoyably. Yondu rolled his eyes again, wondering how many times he's done it today, setting the headphones on the side table, along with the Walkman, but the other hand he left there, moving around Quill's curls for a little longer, scrabbling softly across the smooth red-brown hair. Even as the boy's breathing evened out and it's been couple of minutes since then, Yondu kept his hand there, fingers tickling the hair on the back of Quill's neck.
„More trouble than yer worth, boy", Yondu muttered, adjusted the boy's blankets over his body and turned around, exiting the room quietly as he shut the door behind him.
It hit him then that he didn't turn off the music.