Welcome to this fun little side project! The AU within the AU, if you will. While this is technically connected to the Gravesen Chronicles series, it can also stand alone as its own no-powers AU story. Watching the What If series inspired me to take this route, and I must say that, very much like the What If series, I was not afraid to go there when it comes to dark themes in some of these chapters. This chapter's pretty much pure fluff, as is natural for anything I write with Quill in it, but just be aware that not all of these will depict happy, beautiful lives. Specific warnings will be in the opening author's notes of each chapter. Enjoy the story!

What If...Meredith Quill Survived?

Peter ran his hand through his hair and let out a put-upon sigh. He checked the time. Still almost an hour until closing. He wasn't even that tired, physically; he just wanted to end the monotony of sweeping the floors, wiping down the counters, and cleaning the bathrooms. Even his music failed to hype him up as much as it normally did. Peter never came to work without his Walkman and at least two or three of his mom's mixtapes. He couldn't imagine making it through end-of-day cleanup with only the sound of traffic outside. While taking orders, he wasn't allowed to listen because it was poor customer service or whatever, but his tunes definitely sounded better than irritated customers complaining that their Blizzards were too thick or too thin.

At least the people watching was good. With Missouri being smack in the middle of the country, they saw a lot of road-trippers from all over the place passing through on their way to more exciting places. Peter had seen teenagers on their first freedom romp after graduating high school, elderly people taking one last hurrah of a trip before they or their spouse died, and even a dude who came in the middle of winter, several feet of snow on the ground outside, wearing cargo shorts and sandals. Peter called him Beach Santa Claus because of his getup and his long white hair and beard.

Even Yondu dropped by one time for a chicken strip basket, though he made Peter swear not to tell his mother. Their relationship was…complicated, to say the least, but it had been that way from the very beginning. After a few years, she'd distanced herself from the eccentric nomad because she feared he'd have a negative influence on Peter. He hadn't seen Yondu in nearly a decade when he just popped in. Peter'd nearly had a heart attack. Yondu stuck around just long enough to tell Peter what he was up to, but left before Peter could figure out a way to ask to run away with him. He spent many a day wondering when, or if, he'd ever stop in again.

The majority of their fare were travelers, but there were a few locals that Peter got to know. He didn't learn their names, because asking was crossing a professional boundary, but he knew their orders by heart. There was one family that came in at least twice a month. The mother never got anything, the oldest two children, a boy and a girl, always got chocolate chip cookie dough, and the youngest boy got either whichever holiday one was in season or M&Ms. The dad alternated between Snickers and Heath bar. One time he asked for both in the same Blizzard and Peter just let him have it, despite it being against the rules to provide custom, not-on-the-menu Blizzards. Whatever. What his boss didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

The first time they visited, Peter didn't pay any more attention to them than he would to any other customer, but then he saw the dad look at the youngest child, maybe three years old at the time, and execute a complicated series of hand gestures. Peter had never met a deaf person who spoke sign language in real life, but he assumed that's what they were doing. He had no idea what any of it meant, though. Maybe he was relaying the menu since the kid looked too young to know how to read. Anyway, Peter thought of them as his favorite customers. They'd been in earlier today for their usual Blizzard orders, and Peter could now recognize the signs that meant M&Ms.

Now, at the end of the day, as he swept and listened, he daydreamed about one day leaving this little town in the middle of nowhere. Peter wanted to see more than just farmland and the occasional shopping center, but he didn't see any way out without winning the lottery, getting a rich woman to marry him, or getting abducted by aliens. Now, that would be cool. And probably more feasible than getting a rich woman to marry him.

Peter probably wouldn't have done it if his favorite song in the world hadn't come on next, but between having seen his favorite customers earlier that day and fantasizing about a more exciting life, he couldn't help himself. Using the broom handle as a microphone, he let loose, dancing across the freshly-cleaned floors and singing at the top of his lungs:

Hail, Hail what's the matter with your head, yeah
Hail, Hail, what's the matter with your mind and your sign
Hail, Hail, nothin' the matter with your head
Baby find it, come on and find it
Hail, with it, baby, 'cause you're fine
And you're mine, and you look so divine

Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love

By the end of the song, he was up on the counter, broom in hand, pretending the place was filled to the brim with a screaming crowd. In his excitement, he hadn't noticed that the empty room was slightly less empty than it had been when he started singing. A single person constituted the screaming crowd, only he wasn't screaming. He was standing with his hands on his hips and his face twisted in the most disappointed look Peter had ever seen. Getting off of the counter was probably a good idea at this point, but he was shorter than his boss and he didn't want to have to look up at him instead of down. Peter knew what he was about to hear regardless of how he pled, so he simply stood there and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"You're fired."