Oh sweet baby jesus. 40 follows in less than 24 hours?! *appreciative whistle* Wowzers, people. And 17 reviews too, good god!
Forgive me, everyone, for I do not have a beta. Despite my best efforts you will find some errors dotting the story here and there. I'll go back over it as soon as I can but for now, my mind is too fuzzy to properly process anything.
Thank you for putting up with it thus far. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own GOTG
Peter woke to a, by now, very familiar pain raging through his skull, tearing him apart from the center outwards. He wanted to moan but knew the sound would ricochet through him and make the ache worse. He wanted to move but violent waves of nausea twisted his gut and spun around his head. He wanted to open his eyes but feared the decision would kick the whirling dizziness into a new gear and he would end up heaving right then and there.
So he did the best he could given his situation and simply focused on breathing.
Deep breath in.
…
Deep breath out.
…
Deep breath in.
…
Deep breath out.
Until a swishing sound broke the stillness of whatever room he was in- probably his sleeping quarters given there wasn't anywhere else to haul an unconscious half-Terran on the ship.
Even the sound of the door opening, as quiet as it was, was too loud for his head and he grimaced.
There was the soft sound of little padded feet approaching that took Peter a few moments to place as Rocket's footsteps.
"How's he doing?" the whisper was so uncharacteristic of the brazen gun-totting creature that, even after distinguishing his approach, it took a little longer than it should have to recognize Rocket's voice. And when he had, Peter couldn't help but notice the concern buried in his comrade's undertone.
"His condition has worsened," Gamora replied quietly. Her voice came so suddenly and so closely that Peter almost flinched. As it was he creased his brow, praying to whatever deity that might hear him to sooth this goddamn migraine. "Who is piloting?"
There was a pause between them, as though Rocket needed to sit on his response and in the silence the less-than-famous Starlord could feel their eyes boring into him like lasers, making his skin crawl.
"It's on autopilot right now," came the eventual response, "Drax is watching too." A brief pause, then; "It'll take at least 23 hours to reach a professional hospital on Dedaria but for now I've managed to find a guy on Macabūūre who's willing to connect over live video to help this dumb bastard out. The price isn't too bad either."
And that was where Peter drew the line.
Sucking in a deep breath and mentally preparing himself he offered his two-cents on the matter his comrades were discussing.
"Who the hell let Rocket out of time-out?" he asked at full-volume, smirking despite the pain the action caused him. His voice was like a physical blow, slamming into the two subdued Guardians and blaring around the previously quiet room like a bomb had gone off.
Gamora immediately responded with an exuberant, "Peter?!" slapping her palms on his arm and shoulder as though afraid he might disintegrate.
"Gaaaah," he moaned with protest, pained both by the volume of her voice and her death-grip on his body. Scrunching up his face he continued quickly, "let's go back to whispering, whispering is good."
"Apologies." He listened as Gamora sat down again, cheap leather squelching beneath her.
Still dizzy he lifted his hands to his face and pressed clammy palms into his eye sockets, hoping that a bit of wishful rubbing might persuade his cerebellum to stop spinning and the rest of his head to stop throbbing. "How much money are you trying to spend on treating something as simple as a headache, anyway?"
"Hah," Rocket retorted at a volume just a decibel above a whisper, ignoring his question, "'time-out' he says. Which one of us has to have a babysitter, again?" Peter found himself unable to determine if his comrade was genuinely mad, concerned, or just being as snide as always.
Nevertheless he gave a light chuckle, daring to open one eye and find his comrades. Gamora was, of course, posted at his side in an old run-down chair he'd bought for a cheap price but lost somewhere on the ship. She wore an expression of open concern matted with a weird determination Peter struggled to recognize. Beside her he could make out their fuzzy companion in the dim lighting, his whiskers bent out of shape, fur bedraggled, and red eyes eerily reflecting what little light there was to illuminate the room. It was difficult to see any of this at first as the world split into 3's and 4's, each overlapping image tilting this way and that to give the perception of having 4 Gamoras all looking down at him worriedly. After a moment or so, however, his distorting vision shifted back into something he could actually comprehend and, feeling victorious for some reason, he smiled winningly.
"Morn'n," he joked.
In response, Gamora's face twisted into confusion, "Peter, it is 22:43. "Morning" is still hours away."
Jamming his elbows into the mattress Peter heaved himself back into a semi-sitting position. He grabbed his single pillow and stuffed it behind him, leaning into it and squeezing his eyes shut when the world once again decided to do flips and his migraine reminded him that it wasn't going anywhere with a particularly aggressive crescendo.
"Relax," the blond waved her concern away, bringing a hand up to massage his right temple, "I know it might seem like it but I definitely do not have brain damage."
"Riiiight."
"You," he pointed at Rocket, "have yet to answer my question."
Peter caught a suspicious glint flash through the raccoon's eyes and inwardly groaned in distress; he was not in the mood for mind games.
"What question was that again?"
"Rocket."
"No really. I forgot."
"Rocket."
"What?"
Bringing his other arm out from under him he sank into the pillow behind him and used his now free hand to massage his left temple, "just answer the question."
There was a brief pause that he assumed was filled with a glance between the two. Gamora must have given a threatening glare or something as Rocket finally just shrugged and gave up the information that Peter wanted to hear.
"25,000 units."
And cue the simultaneous reaction from both humanoid figures;
"What!" Peter bolted up so fast he would have fallen out of bed if it hadn't been for Gamora's steadying hands.
"Woah, easy! It's not that much!" Rocket protested, bringing both paws up in a defensive gesture.
"Rocket, that is 95% of our food money," Peter retaliated, holding his head as though worried it would fall apart.
"And how would we be able to pay for professional treatment with what we had left? Even if we could, we wouldn't have enough to pay for gas or food- we'd be grounded until we found another job," Gamora reasoned, ignoring her leader's objection to professional treatment. "It's not an offer, Peter," she snapped at him.
Clearly offended Rocket puffed out his fur and leapt onto the bed. Now at eye-level with the two of them he pulled back his ears and snarled, "I had a plan!"
It was at this point that Peter's headache decided it had had enough of all the shouting and added its own protests. A sharp, blinding ache pierced his tender brain matter and a startled cry of pain escaped him before he could swallow it. Gamora's grip on his shoulders tightened and she called his name but Peter was hardly listening. His head was bowed, hands pressed into either side of his skull, and would have been swaying had she not been holding him steady.
He'd had some pretty gnarly headaches in his time and Yondu could attest to that, but he was truly beginning to wonder if he really didn't need proper medical attention at this point.
With bile trying to crawl up his throat, Peter forced his eyes open- blearily noticing that Rocket had perked up, that concern glittered in his beady eyes- and squinted at his worried comrades. "C'mon, it's just a migraine. Give it a day and it'll be gone. I just need to sleep it off."
It didn't take a genius to see neither of his friends were convinced.
"I may not be as familiar with these 'my-grains' and 'head-aches' as I need to be to make a proper medical deduction but I do think we all know this is much more severe than that," Gamora told him.
Peter didn't have the energy to argue with her as he pulled away, slumping into his pillows with clenched teeth, "Alright, fine. At least give me a day to recover. If I'm not better by the time we hit Dedaria then you can do whatever you want, deal?"
Several worrisome heartbeats of silence answered him.
Finally, Rocket huffed and launched himself off the bed, storming towards the door with a grumbled, "suit yourself."
"I will also respect your decision," his remaining friend assured him.
Head still throbbing, eyes stinging with exhaustion, and bile clogging his throat, Peter smiled gratefully. He wanted to ask her if she was going to sit at his bedside all day, to question her hobbies and maybe use his "ailment" to glean a little more information out of the elusive assassin of his crew but found, distressingly, that he'd rather just close his eyes and take a nap instead.
Yet, as time continued to turn, he discovered himself at odds with a very irritatingly familiar problem.
His headache was barring him from the sleep he so greatly wanted.
Several minutes passed with him grimacing and wriggling, unsuccessfully trying to ignore his pain before Gamora intervened.
He twitched with surprise as the pads of her fingers found his temples, eyelids fluttering open to see her blurred figure leaning over him.
The blond opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing but before he could even get the first syllable out she answered.
"This helps you, yes?" she asked softly, moving her fingers in a circular motion. Peter could only close his eyes and hum.
It felt good.
Like it was a hidden skill her deft fingers found the throbbing veins he'd been trying to press into all this time and muffled the constant throbbing as easily as she could have cut his head off. She used just the right amount of pressure on both sides and moved like a professional. A relieved sigh escaped him, whispering calmly past his lips and before he was aware of what was happening his consciousness gently left him.
And then chapter 2 happened.
Same as before, leave me an O if you liked, leave me an X if you didn't.
Cheers, friends!
