" Please wake up..." Murmured Kraglin to the small body in the med capsule. Gently shaking the Terran, as he held him in his arms he pleaded "Come on, Pete. Wake up, please? For me?"
The boy's head rolled from side to side, blue eyes still closed and breathing stuttered
"Please, Peter stay with me. You're gonna be okay. Please. I promise. Just stay. Please?"
The Xandarian pleaded, eyes starting to water.
The fever ridden boy didn't answer. He'd been in the throes of sickness for the last two days, falling down in the canteen and just not getting up anymore. His body had plunged itself of all liquids over the spun of the 48 hours and only the rickety med capsule was keeping him from drying up completely. Yondu hadn't slept a wink in the time, trying to rush the Eclector to the nearest hospital and most of the crew stopped by to leave a small trinket for the child.
Kraglin whimpered, wiping the hair from the boy's eyes, "He's getting worse…"
A cough broke through the chapped lips as Peter whimpered and mumbled "Mommy…"
"Peter!?" The Xandarian perked up hearing the boy talk. "Peter, it's me. It's Kraglin."
"Momma it hurts" Weakly cried out the boy as he clutched the big warm hand holding his.
Kraglin looked at the sick child, eyes wide at Peter calling him his mother, "I…I know sweetie….you'll get to feeling better soon, I promise."
The boy just cried pitifully as fat tears rolled down his flushed face. "Make it stop Momma… Get it out, please…"
"Just a little bit longer, dovey. We're gettin' ya to the hospital, and then ya'll be as good as new. Me and Yondu are lookin' after ya. You'll be fine." He kissed Peter's forehead. He thought about telling the kid that he's not his mother, but allowed it seeing the kid is sick. "A bit delusional." He muttered.
The little nose scrunched as Peter's brows furrowed and his weak voice got stronger and stronger, arms coming up to claw at his chest. "Get it out, Momma! Get it out!" Cried out Peter as his eyes flew open. A scream filled the room as the boy's fingers tried to pry open his chest. He looked down and howled in terror, eyes unseeing, or seeing something others weren't able to. "MOMMA, GET IT OUT!"
Kraglin gasped in horror, and he tried to keep the boy from hurting himself, "Peter stop it! It's okay you're alright! Stop it , please! Yondu help! Hurry!"
"No! No, you gotta get it out of me!" Gried out Peter as he managed to get his shirt ripped off, exposing the reddened skin of his chest. Under Kraglin's horrified eyes, it rippled a bit as it something long and thin slithered right under the surface. "Momma, it's hurtin' me! Please cut it out!" Begged Peter, grabbing on to the man.
"Oh my stars!" Kraglin screeched in disbelief of what was happening. "S-Stay calm, sweetie." He turned to the door, "SOMEONE PLEASE HELP FOR STARS SAKE! GET THE MEDICS NOW!"
"What now?" Came the grumbling voice of the ship's doctor, Zerxis. The four armed being glided into the room and lazily looked at the two occupants before his look sharpened, taking in the panicked look on both their faces and zoning in on the movement on the child's chest. Swiftly sliding over to the two, he bodily moved Kraglin out of the way and lowered his face to be able to see better. "What happened?" He promptly asked the Xandarian.
Kraglin took a quick breath, "He's been sick for awhile and he just started clawing a-at his chest and then th-that thing..! Help him please, Zerxis, I'm begging ya!"
The Belgirun gave Kraglin a slap on the cheek as he gripped his chin. "You gotta calm down and give me a clear explanation here. I know he's been sick already, I put him in this capsule. What I need from you is when did this" He pointed to the boy's chest " Start happening? How long has it been going on and what has he been doing about so far?" Concluded the male, staring expectantly at the Xandarian.
"He's been trying to rip open his chest." The Xandarian muttered quietly, looking into the Belgirun's eyes. "Just started as far as I know…."
Zerxis nodded and turned to the still terrified child "Peter? Peter, what is it doing?" Asked the man as he tore off the remainders of the shirt and forced the boy down on the horizontal surface once more. One of his four hands got the scanner while two more held the kid. Last one was running through his hair in attempts to calm the boy down.
Peter just gasped, trying to take deeper breaths and failing. "It's... It's just moving there, it's moving and it hurts! Please get it out of me" Cried out the Terran.
The Xandarian went to the other side of the bed, and sat beside Peter. "Shhh…it's alright Pete, Zerxis is gonna help ya. He's a good medic and knows what he's doin'." He glanced at Zerxis, "Ain't that right?"
"Sure I do" Said the other glancing at Kraglin from under his brow as he got back to his task of hovering the scanner over Peter's chest "I've only been patching you rats up for a decade after all" With those words his eyes froze on the small screen. "Kragllin? Come look at this... Now" Urged the Belgirun.
"What is it?!" He rushed over beside the Belgirun, looking at the screen. "What….what is that?!"
"What is it?" Panickly asked Peter as he tried to peer over at the screen but then arched off the bio bed as a shout of pain broke from his mouth. "Momma!"
"Lay down Peter!" Insisted the doctor as two of his arms held the boy down. "Kraglin help me hold him down, this will need more then 2 hands for me to do" With the other man's help they got Terran to settle down and Zerxis strapped him down with the soft straps.
"Now, Kraglin. Look at this again." Motioning to the screen where an image of a long spiny creature was frozen, making its way across the child's sternum, crawling under his skin. "Its a parasite. What I don't understand is how it got in him, but I do know how to get it out. You will need to hold him down, because I can not risk using the anesthetic on someone so young."
"Ya mean…cut it out of him?!…." Kraglin was hesitant for a moment, before he finally nodded, "If it makes him better." He took a deep, shaky breath as he once again walk to the other side of the bed and carefully helped the other hold the boy down. "You're goin' to be fine, Pete, just a bit more pain, and then you'll be right back to running 'round the ship with your Terran music box."
He was met with a splotchy face as Peter cried, tears rolling down his face, and whimpering as he tried to breath through the choking gulps of air. "I'm scared Momma. I'm really scared. What if I'm gonna die? I really don't want to die! I don't wanna see the angels yet!" Gasped the kid as his fingers clutched at Kraglin's sleeve, that being the only thing he could reach with his hands strapped down.
Meanwhile Zerxis got the tray of instruments he was going to need and set it next to the med capsule's side. It's been years since he even saw a parasite like this one, having thought them extinct in this side of the galaxy. They were rare and never random. Most of the time, these species were used in high-end assasinations where clients wanted their subject to suffer and really feel the pain and the terrifying sensation of something completely foreign moving under their skin. They were illegal on every darn planet, too; even Knowhere had a ban on those blythers. Never the less, he had a case now, and if Zerxis valued his hide, Peter had better live through it. Because if the operation did not succeed…
It was only a matter of hours judging by the size of the creature, until it got enough strength to break through the cartilage and eat the boy's heart.
"Are you ready?"
Leaning down, Kraglin gently kissed the boy's forehead. "You're not goin' to die, my little Star Lord. You're goin' to be alright. Only a couple of moments more of pain." He pulled back and glanced at the Belgirun. He nodded slowly, "Yeah, ready. Be as fast and as painless as possible. Please."
"I'll do my best" Promised the doctor. With that he looked down at the terrified child in front of him "You'll have to be brave" He told him. Receiving a shaky nod in return the man took up his instruments.
Kraglin turned his head and bit his lip unable to watch as the surgical instrument pierce the Terran child's chest. He held Peter down tight as he cried out in pain. Kraglin whispering, 'I'm sorry.' the whole time.
In too much pain to talk, the boy could only scream as he felt the metal pierce his flesh. His screams were soon joined by the almost inaudiable screech of the creature that the Belgirun pulled out of his chest cavity. It was wriggling in the steel pincers as the doctor slowly extracted the spindly body. It had little legs running down both sides with which it tried to hold on to Peter's skin, causing it to ip and bleed. The boy screamed himself hoarse as he finally got to see what was living inside of him.
"MOMMMAAAAA!"
"I'm right here, Pete! Shush, love, it's alright! It's over! You're fine now!" Kraglin whispered, brushing Peter's bangs out of his eyes. "Just gotta stitch ya up, it doesn't hurt at all. Just a pinch."
Zerxis shot a look at the two as he dropped the parasite into a containment unit full of freeze liquid and closed the lid on it. Throwing the pincers down he took up the skin regenerator and applied a strip of genetic material all around the incision, making sure to cover the middle of it with the end part. "You did good kid, just gotta patch you up, just like Momma said." With that he sprayed the activator on the material, assuring the chemical reaction that made the strip stick to the boy's skin and start modifying itself to fit the edges and start healing.
"Alright, now that gotta stay on you for a few hours so you get to enjoy our comfortable bio bed for a little longer. Now that the parasite is out we should expect his fever to go down within the hour" He told Kraglin.
The Xandarian nodded, "Thank you, Zerxis. I owe ya big time." He smiled softly at the other. "You're actually quite great."
The man just shrugged his four shoulders. "You knew that the moment I patched up that stab wound o' yours 5 years ago. What I'm wondering now is who can be mad enough at a 10 year old to slip him something laced with the Carpatian Slither Egg" Pondered Zerxis.
"What?! Someone did that on purpose!? What type of idiot would do that to a child!?" Kraglin hissed. "Yondu will need to know 'bout this immediately!"
"Yondu will know as soon as I tell him what exactly was making the boy sick" Answered Zerxis. "He's well aware of these wriggly bastards as they're outlawed even with outlaws. If Peter got one in him, it was placed there on purpose. I'm not saying it was shoved in him" Waved his hand the male "But he was given something to eat that contained an egg of this creature. They always hibernate for 2 days, then the growth reaches the stage where the Slither starts moving and crawling around under the skin as it leached from the stomach lining into the abdominal cavity. Luckily for us there's a window of opportunity to get it out, seeing as the thing instinctually crawls towards the sternum to break through and consume the heart. Before it can do that, we cut it out. Such as now. But an hour od two later…" He just spread his arms. "Peter here would've been a heartless carcass. SO what does that tell you, Kraglin" He asked the other Ravager.
"To trust no one, but yourself, for others will always find a way to stab ya in the back?" He asked, head tilted.
"The Raveger motto had never been truer" Agreed the Belgirun. "With that smart piece of advice, I leave you to go report to our valiant Captain. Stay with the kid and keep an eye on him for a while, yeah?" He nodded to the boys on the bio bed and left the room, gliding out once more, with his mind working furiously on who exactly would want to harm a child.
Kraglin turned to the child, "Hey, Pete, how are ya feelin', my brave Star Lord?"
"It still hurts" Answered Peter as he smiled at Kraglin "But it doesn't wriggle around anymore, so I'm ok now Momma" He then frowned. "The doctor said someone did this to me; why? I never did anything to anyone"
"There are cruel, horrid people in this universe, Peter. People who will harm ya just because they want to and will when they get the chance. It's hard to find people who won't."
Kraglin frowned sadly before his smile returned to his lips, "But there are good people, and when ya find them ya have cherish them, and protect as the would protect you. Find good people, and you'll always survive."
"Like you?" Asked Peter as he traced his tiny fingers lightly over Kraglin's hand after his own had been unstrapped from the table. "You're a good person and you helped me survive, so you're my cherished person now, ok? " The boy looked up at the other man. "I promise to protect you too"
Kraglin smile grew and he ruffled Peter's hair, "And you're my cherished person as well. And I'll always protect you with everything I have. I promise. You also might be my favorite as well."
The Terran blushed a bit "I like being your favorite… Ain't ever been anyone's favorite but Momma's… Guess that doesn't change" Peter glanced up at Kraglin from under his lashes.