Empty. Nothing was at the bottom of his bag after he had hastily tossed his junk out.
Peter's heart skipped a beat, his new little friend was gone! He frantically shot up, dumping out his dresser drawers. Besides his three changes of clothes, they were as barren as always. He ripped the blanket off his bed in panic, but found nothing save the pile of candy wrappers he had been hiding from Yondu as well.
He stood just staring at the mess he had made of his small, confined living space, letting an emptiness settle in him before the fear could take hold. His only friend was probably dead and he was next. Yondu explicitly told him he wasn't allowed to keep the little frog, to just let it lie there in its own blood to die, or to put it out of its misery, not save it. His breathing began to increase as his eyes darted around the mess he made, he was supposed to keep his area clean too.
He was screwed.
So freaking screwed.
Before he had a plan or thought anything period, he was racing out of his door. Peter was breaking another rule (he wasn't supposed to leave his room after Yondu declared it was bed time), but he just didn't care right now. He had to find Kit. His little friend couldn't have gotten far with that bad leg of his.
He slid to a halt and backed up into a small crevice when he heard a roaring laughter echoing through the hall. He held his breath and scooted farther back into the crawl space he had nestled in, hearing one of the drunk crew members coming closer. Peter bit into his lip when he heard a bottle smash near him.
"We ain't supposed to be in this area smashing shit, dumb ass!" One man hissed, smacking his friend whose yelps echoed down the corridor, making Peter wince.
"The cap'n pet is sleepin'!"
"What do I care about the Terran twerp?" his friend hissed, slamming him hard into the wall next to Peter's hiding spot, the boy sucked his breath in hard as he slid back into the dead end of the tight space.
"If it was up to me, we woulda already delivered him and collected the riches promised, or just sold him off to the highest bidder to get rid of the whiny little brat."
This conversation wasn't new. Peter had heard it time and time again, often right to his face, so he just tuned them out. Crouched in his hiding space, waiting for the drunk crew men to leave, he just wanted to find Kit before one of them could hurt his friend.
"Well we didn't, did we?" his friend hissed from the corner of Peter's eye he caught the large man who almost looked human to him's eye roll and annoyed expression. The man next to him was larger and a bright shade of red that reminded Peter of a cartoon devil (the horns poking from his bald head didn't help shake the thought).
Something hopped on his foot, making a small gasp emerge from him. He instantly regretted it when he heard one of the men hiss that he heard something. He glanced down to find his missing friend sitting on his bare foot (he had been too stressed to put his boots back on once he found his friend missing).
Resting on his bare skin, his friend croaked happily, making Peter's hand clamp hard onto his own mouth to quiet his panicked breaths.
"I definitely heard something now," the Devil Himself grunted while Human-Looking-Enough just rolled his eyes.
"Yer drunk is what ya are, and hearing shit again."
Peter tried to tune them out and focus on keeping quiet. Smiling gently at Kit, Peter bent down enough to scoop him into his palm. The frog began to glow a bright red as he held him a little too tight in his hand and he instantly felt his heart begin to speed up, biting hard down into his lip to keep his panicked breaths from being heard. He looked pleadingly down to his friend, begging him to stop. He didn't know how his friend did it, but he was very good at bringing strong emotions out of him.
Maybe it was one of his slipped harsh breaths that got him caught, or possibly Kit's loud, concerned croak or his brightening glow. Peter couldn't answer that but he could tell you when The Devil yanked him out, he left quite the impressive bruise on his arm.
He felt his stomach sink as The Devil yanked his arm, holding the boy up in the air and scowling at him as their eyes met. He clung to Kit protectively while Kit changed from a bright red to a bright yellow, making Peter's heart pound faster and tears prick against his eyes, holding his breath to keep back the sob. His eyes once more shot beggingly down to his friend, begging him to stop it so he could fight for them if things got messy and he couldn't in the pure state of terror he was in right now.
He tried to talk his way out of this like he usually did but nothing came out of his mouth but a terrified moan, whatever Kit did to him it was making it hard for him to suppress his emotions instead of masking them like he normally would.
He wanted to spit on that sneer, show him he wasn't week, that he wasn't scared. He wanted to struggle, to kick him on the stomach to make him let him go.
He couldn't muster any of those things, clinging tighter to Kit who was glowing brighter, he was no more than the scared kid he really was and that scared him more than anything.
That mask he had been crafting over his emotions since his mom first sat him down three years ago and told him she wouldn't be around forever was cracking, and the only friend he had in his life right now was making that happen.
If he was smart, he would have dropped Kit, let him fend for himself. He was bringing out the worst of him and only a hindrance.
Too bad Peter Jason Quill wasn't too smart, but he was very stubborn. He vowed to protect Kit and not let him die when he found him, and he intended to keep that promise.
"What's that ya got there, boy?" The Devil snarled, annoying Human-Enough standing to his right.
"Let the boy go, Zen, it ain't worth it…"
"I'm just talking to the little fellow, mate, no foul play in that."
"The cap'n is gonna be mad if you break his pet, and we weren't supposed to be in this area anyway…" Human-Enough tried to reason, and Peter felt a sense of gratitude that someone on this ship was coming to his aid, even if it was in such a dismissive, careless way.
"His pet ain't supposed to be out of bed and it looks like he's hidin' something he ain't supposed to have…"
"Zen, the cap'n's pet has a Croaker!" Human-Enough hissed out in excitement; he tried to snatch Kit from Peter, who finally found the nerve to yank back, holding his friend away from the man's drunken, almost desperate snatches.
Peter fought through the hold Kit was putting him under (probably just as scared as himself and Peter was sure he didn't mean to make him feel like this) and kicked The Devil in the chest with both of his feet, knocking the breath temporary out of the drunk creature, at last forcing him to let go of the boy.
Peter hit the ground hard, but was rolling onto his feet before he had time to catch his breath, dodging Human-Enough's second grab for Kit.
Peter did what he did best and ran. His only plan was to go hide in his room until the coast was clear and hope these two were too drunk to remember this encounter in the morning. Like always though, his plan didn't work out very well. And it should have been just as unsurprising it was the captain himself who put a damper to his plans.
Yondu had been doing that since day one, always just popping up to ruin his ill thought out plans. Peter's plan to run far away from the pain of his mother's death, away from the family he would only burden in the long run, his plan to maybe join the circus or something was foiled by Yondu abducting him. Just as his escape back to his room to hope he could go on pretending this situation hadn't happen was foiled by the man grabbing the back of his shirt.
"What the hell is going on here?" The Captain was intimidating enough silent, but yelling like he was with his spittle hitting the back of Peter's neck just put the boy right back into the terrified trance he was trying to fight.
Peter couldn't get a word out before Human-Enough really gained his ire yelling about Kit right away.
"The boy's got a croaker, Cap'n!"
Peter clamped harder down on Kit, feeling the Captain's red eyes glaring down at the pet he was trying so hard to hide. Peter's breathing was picking up and tears were pricking against his eyes again; a bright yellow glow was emitting from clamped fingers, making The Captain's sneer grow more pronounced.
"If ya value yer life you would leave this area now," he snarled towards the drunk crew men as he marched past them, holding Peter's collar just as tight as he dropped him on the ground making the boy stumble a little as he marched him back to his quarters.
Peter was thrown carelessly onto the floor of his quarters, the door slammed tight behind them and locked to prevent any interruptions. Peter gulped and began to quiver, pressing Kit closer to him.
"I told ya to leave that thing where it was boy."
His tone was level but there was that underlining threat to his voice that made Peter stiffen. Yondu very rarely used this tone on him, he usually only saved it for crew members he was about to beat or kill. Peter slowly began scooting away from the captain, holding Kit closer to him. He didn't care how afraid he was, he wasn't gonna let him kill Kit, he didn't deserve that. He was innocent, and if Peter ended up in the med bay after this, so be it. He wasn't going down without a fight, Yondu could do what he wanted to the criminals on this ship, he wasn't touching Kit.
"I couldn't leave—"
"That wasn't one of yer choices, boy! You was either to leave it to suffer or end its misery, not keep the damn thing!"
"I wasn't gonna leave him to die," Peter spat out, tears misting his vision, making the captain more of an inky blot to him as he clung tighter to Kit making his poor friend croak louder. "I'm not a monster like you and your crew!"
He instantly regretted voicing the thing that had been at the edge of his thoughts for the last year and a half now. He should have kept that to himself. He flinched, through his narrowed eyes he saw Yondu tighten his fists, he had done it now, he had offended Yondu at long last. The thing he had been trying to avoid all this time, he finally did it. He would either be dead or hurting something fierce in the morning.
"A monster am I now, boy?" he sounded less angry and more depressed then Peter had ever heard him on his time on the ship. However, Peter wasn't going to let his guard down. He backed further away from the man, he wasn't gonna let him kill Kit, that wasall he cared about now.
Peter's hand got caught in the bedding he had tossed on the floor earlier and his temporary distraction seemed to seal his friend's fate as he was snatched from his hand.
"Do you even know what this thing is?"
"He's my friend! If you hurt him-"
"You'll what, boy? Cry? Scream? Bite me again? That didn't work too well for ya last time, so I don't think I have a reason to be threatened by it."
Yondu put enough pressure down on Kit to make him cry out instantly making Peter jump to his feet and tighten his fists at his side, he was gonna stand his ground this time and Kit wasn't gonna die.
Peter did the stupidest thing he could think of at that moment and attempted to punch Yondu. Unsurprisingly Yondu easily snatched his fist, tightening his grip on it, making the boy whimper in pain as he yanked him up to look him straight in his red eyes.
Peter knew he was screwed, but he didn't know when to quit and kicked at the man holding him. Yondu didn't seem to react to it; the blow only made the sneer on his face more pronounced and his teeth flashed, as if warning Peter of the earlier threats of eating him.
"Yer goin' to a lot of effort to save nothing more than a drug, boy,"
"I don't care what you say he is! He's my friend and you hurt him; and I don't care how but I will make you pay."
"Let's say ya manage to kill me, boy, then what? Ye gonna take on the rest of the crew? The crew that wants nothin' more then to eat ya? All over a Croaker? Do ya even know what Croakers are or what people like the idiots on this ship use them for?"
"I don't care. He's not some thing you can just use and toss around or eat or whatever! He's a living creature with feelings! And yer hurting him!"
Peter didn't realize he was screaming now, or that the water works were starting again, or how pathetic and childish he looked, or that his heroic speech was nothing but a tantrum to the captain. He just kept going because he was a child who couldn't keep his anger held under toe anymore.
"Boy, ya do realize ya are just gettin' yer first real high right?" Yondu was laughing and it was just making the anger he had been holding burn hotter at the sound.
"No. I'm. Not." Peter hissed out defiantly standing his ground on the matter.
"Yes. Ya. Are." Yondu hissed back at him.
"You don't have no Terran critter, boy," Yondu said with a roll of his eyes, loosening his grip on Kit for Peter to get a good look at his friend: the frog croaked loudly in pain and his stiches had re opened. "What ya have here is a croaker. A failed experiment too useless to make rich folks feel better about their miserable lives that ended up on the streets to mix with other drugs for very dangerous effects, and I don't want any of the drunks on my crew getting too emotional and deciding they want to mutiny on me."
"Then I won't let those idiots touch him!" Peter hissed making a grab for Kit but Yondu yanked away from his grasp with a smirk.
"Well what about you, ya idiot," Yondu mocked shoving Peter out of his personal space and onto his bed with a growl of annoyance from the boy. "Am I supposed to let you just let yer emotions run wild?"
"They won't!"
"And I'm supposed to just believe that?"
Peter said nothing because he really couldn't promise that. He pulled his knees close to him as the captain sat down next to him in the bed.
"They'll be worse if you kill my friend."
Yondu did something Peter did not expect: he burst out laughing and shoved Kit back at Peter before getting up to leave.
"Yer too soft boy," were the parting words from the captain as he once more locked him in his room. Peter almost felt like calling a sarcastic good night his way, maybe telling Yondu that he desperately needed some beauty rest, but he felt too emotionally drained.
He smiled down at Kit nuzzling against him, emitting a soft green glow that helped him soothe those emotions enough to lie down for the night.
Peter learned a lot from this experience: not getting caught next time was one of them (that was given), but something unexpected he learned was that Yondu, the man who threatened to eat him on a daily basis, the man who kidnapped him for unknown reasons, had a heart somewhere deep down underneath the tough guy façade.
He let that thought settle into his mind as he lay down to sleep with Kit resting comfortably next to him.