Chapter 2: Blame it on my ADD, baby
As the inevitable can be held off for only so long, it's a few hours later that Peter runs into one displeased and notably jacketless Centaurian.
"Quill, you little shit. Pain in my ass Terran," Yondu gripes, catching Peter swiftly by his collar when he fails to sneak past the captain on the bridge. "Got my best jacket reekin' of goddamn Terran barf! I thought you knew how to hold your liquor, boy!"
"Hey, man, usually I've got a gut of absolute steel," Peter defends, wiggling against Yondu's grip. "How else could I have survived all those freaky alien foods you forced down my throat growin' up?"
"Oh, boohoo. Now the boy's cryin' about me keepin' him fed and alive." Yondu releases Peter's shirt with a yank. "You're one ungrateful li'l barf bag, you know that?"
"Yeah, kept me alive after almost killing me," Peter grumbles as he fixes his collar. "Some of that junk gave me severe allergic reactions!"
Yondu's jaw twitches. "I'd like to know how in the hell I was supposed to know what a Terran can or can't eat?" he demands, indignant. "Ain't never had one before! 'Sides, we got you to the doc and fixed you right up after you started turnin' that funny purple color, didn't we?"
Peter blows air into his cheeks to cut off his own retort; he knows how to pick his battles. Usually. "Sorry 'bout the jacket," he says instead. He even has the decency to try and look sheepish. "I'll clean it."
"You bet'cha will," Yondu affirms. "And know what else you'll do?" He shoves a full, sudsy bucket smack dab into Peter's chest. The big jerk must have been armed and ready to run into Peter all day. "Communal bathrooms. All week long. Go on, now." He flashes a grin, all jagged teeth and crimson eyes, before continuing his stride down the bridge and away from Peter. "You ain't the only unlucky bastard that blew his chunks, but the rest managed to aim 'em into them bathrooms."
"Sweet Jesus." With a heavy sigh, Peter grudgingly turns his heel to head towards said bathrooms. He supposes he'll count himself lucky (well, not lucky per say, but you know; it's all relative) that his Smurf of an overlord hadn't even been all that angry. Bathroom cleaning duty ain't exactly a Christmas present but, in the past, Yondu has been ticked enough to ban Peter to the ship come mission time, or threaten to have his Milano locked up and away.
Not that Yondu will be able to hold those kinds of things over his head forever. Peter swears that, someday, he'll leave this place. (He tried once already when he was sixteen, but it only ended with Peter groveling back at the Ravager's doorstep. Mud-soaked, tired and hungry, with an entire small planet out for his blood. He's taken the whole experience as a subtle sign that maybe he's not quite ready to head off on his own.)
He also swears that there aren't many smells in the universe more putrid than that of a communal Ravager bathroom. In some unspoken pact, much of the crew enjoy remaining sweaty, unbathed and sometimes flea-ridden for as long of stretches as possible. And then they honestly wonder why the ladies flee when a gaggle of Ravager men come marching through. Sure, there's the intimidation factor to consider, and the fact that the crew is generally horrifying to look at, but Peter's convinced it's mostly the smell.
Peter lets the bucket drop to the ground with a thud, making a face as he discovers that Yondu certainly hadn't been lying.
He's on his hands and knees, elbows deep in the soap bucket, when another unmistakable scent wafts over. It overrides both the 'Ravager' stench and the strong chemical smell of the soap. And Peter absolutely freezes.
Meredith Quill had loved to bake. Especially pies. Her best, and Peter's favorite, was her apple pie.
As years have passed on, it's terrified Peter to realize that there are little things about his mother he simply cannot remember. But one memory he recalls with crystal clear clarity is that of him bursting through the front door after his days at school, warmed by the sight of his mother, who sang in the kitchen with the windows wide open. The smell of her baking is safely embedded in his mind. So safely, in fact, that there's little debate that he's smelling it right this second.
He tosses the sponge and rocks back on his heels, glancing about the room wildly. He doesn't know what he's expecting to see- Meredith Quill, holding an apple pie in the middle of a spaceship bathroom?- but suddenly it's of utmost importance that Peter find the source.
He jumps to his feet and hurries out through the door, where he runs smack dab into Horuz.
"Ey! Where's the fire, Quill?" Horuz asks, apprehensively eyeing Peter's soapy arms and wide eyes.
"Do you smell that?!" Peter exclaims, peering over Horuz's shoulder excitedly.
"Er... the smell of about a dozen men's vomit? Yeah. Real rank."
"No, no." Peter grabs the older man by the shoulders and turns him around, ignoring Horuz's annoyance with being manhandled. "That. Do you smell that amazing smell?"
"I smell puke, Quill. Ain't nothin' 'amazing' about that."
Of course Horuz wouldn't have a reference to what Peter's talking about. There's no apple pie in space, after all. Peter releases him and continues towards the scent, only to realize with horror that it's fading.
"Ah, no. No, no!" Peter halts, tries another direction, and then backtracks towards the restrooms, but as quickly as it arrived, any trace of his mom's baking is gone. He looks around desperately, trying to determine if there's been anyone who's randomly walked by with a baked goods cart or something, but there is only Horuz, scratching his head at Peter from the restroom entrance.
"Can't say I know what you're on about, Quill."
"I don't know. Nothing, I guess," Peter says, feeling both puzzled and crestfallen. His shoulders droop. "I'll, uh, I'll finish up later. I think I need a break."
He doesn't really know what he'd expected, nor what on earth he has to feel so disappointed over.
But he doesknow that in the decade that Meredith Quill has been gone, even as he's prayed out to her, even as he's listened to her favorite songs over and over and over again, never before has Peter had such a tangible sense of his mother being right there.
"Do you believe in ghosts, Kraglin?"
Kraglin doesn't look up at the question, too invested in picking out something stuck between his crooked front teeth. He's squinting at his reflection off of a cooking pot being used as a makeshift handheld mirror. "There ain't no such thing as ghosts." He stops mid-pick, eyes trailing to Peter, suddenly looking wary. "Why? Somethin', uh... 'ghost-like' didn't happen anywhere 'round here, did it?"
"Nah." Peter snuffs a smile at Kraglin's poorly disguised fear of the undead. "How 'bout telepaths? You ever deal with a telepath before?"
"Deal with one?" Kraglin grimaces as he twists the pick deep between his gums. "Yeah, kid. I dated one."
Peter, already leaning on his forearms, leans even closer in towards Kraglin. "What was that like? Did she ever plant weird things in your head?"
"Mmm, yeah..." Kraglin finally yanks the mystery object out of his mouth. "-Damned Scalluscs! Them shells are always gettin' stuck in my teeth!- Anywho. The telepath gal. Man, was she hot! Real bonkers though. She only used her telepath-y stuff on me once I broke it off with her. Started projectin' herself to make sure I could see her, hopin' it would make me miss her and come back. So, I booked it from that crazy broad! She couldn't make me see nothin' else once I made good distance. That, or she just went 'n gave up. I don't rightly know."
Peter hums in thought. The Ravagers had been sure to hightail it off the planet where he'd encountered the Aedian both quickly and discreetly. They'd still been in the immediate aftermath of a big heist, after all. If proximity were indeed a factor, Peter's pretty sure there's no way the woman could have kept close enough by to be currently messing with him, but...
"Could she, uh... make you smell things? If she wanted to?"
"Smell things? Heck if I know, Pete. Didn't stick around long enough to find out." Kraglin looks to him curiously. "What's with all the questions? You plannin' on askin' out a telepath or somethin'? Hopin' to get my blessing?"
Peter promptly tells him 'no', proceeding to randomly pick up the closest nearby object and chuck it straight at Kraglin, his unconventional way of distraction and putting an end to the conversation.
Because here is Peter's problem: of course he'd like to know why he's hearing voices and smelling apple pie out of the blue. It's just that he's not stupid enough to go blabbing about his odd experiences to any of the gruff crew who, at best, would tell him that he's nuts.
Which, scarily enough, is a possibility.
Even if that Aedian he'd met were using some sort of telepathic abilities to mess with Peter, why call out for him in some random voice, and why dig up old, specific memories of his deceased mother? It didn't make any sense. Perhaps, when she'd touched him, she'd caused him to become unhinged? Maybe he's gone crazy all on his own, and had even imagined her?
He sighs. Whether he's being screwed with, haunted, or is simply going off the deep end, he can't know. And if he's not about to talk to anyone else about it, he really doesn't know what else there is to do besides wait. Wait and see.
A week goes by without incident and he lets himself hope that, perhaps, he's already seen the end of it.
It starts up again with the music.
He supposes that's fitting, really.
Peter's plopped himself down in a chair near Yondu, who is currently towering over his desk, sifting admiringly through a box of acquired treasures. "Hey, Yondu? Are toad-whales really a thing?"
It's been years since Peter has called Yondu 'sir' or 'Captain' outside of doing so because he's in trouble. And it's been nearly as long since Yondu's bothered to correct him for it. Just like now, when Yondu, rather than snappishly correcting Peter to address him by his title, merely quirks a brow. "What, now?"
"Toad-whales," Peter enunciates patiently, as if this were a totally normal topic of conversation, and Yondu simply hadn't heard him correctly. "Horuz was saying they can be caught and tamed to be ridden. I know he's usually full of shit but if he's right, wouldn't it be badass to have one? Oh, my God, it would be totally badass. Let's go find one! Set the course!"
"Can't say I'm sure what in the flyin' fuck awhale-toad is, but no, we ain't gonna go find one. I've already gotta watch that you don't up and piss everywhere." Yondu snickers at Peter's affronted look, ignoring his protest of "that was one time, I was ten!"
"'Sides, what are you still beggin' me for pets for, boy? You're fourteen, or whatever. Ain't you ready to be grown up and out of that phase yet?"
"Okay, one, I haven't been fourteen for a solid five years now. Thanks for keeping up with that. And two, a toad-whale would hardly be a 'pet'." Peter kicks up his legs and spins nonchalantly around in his chair. "It would be a kickass companion for a kickass outlaw, such as myself."
"Yeah. Well. They sound obnoxious. And you're already annoyin' as all hell. I've got a migraine just thinkin' about it."
Peter sighs in defeat, leaning his head back against the chair to gaze lazily out at the blanket of stars.
That's when he notices that Yondu… is playing music.
Earth music.
"There's a port on a western bay, and it serves a hundred ships a day..."
Peter perks up at this, listening with pleased interest. "Huh. Never thought I'd catch you voluntarily listening to Terran music in your free time. You hate mine!"
The audio starts to drone in and out, quieting itself before cranking up so loudly it sounds as though it'll burst the ship's speakers. Peter winces and tries to muffle his ears with his hands, looking to Yondu in bewilderment.
"Okay. Wherever you got this tape, it sucks. If you wanted some quality tunes, you could've just asked to play mine, y'know," Peter grouses, slumping down in his seat whilst gripping his ears.
If Yondu even hears Peter over the music, he ignores him; he's chewing idly on a pick, turning one of his trinkets over in his hand for examination, seemingly unbothered by the ear-shattering volume.
The song quiets down decently, but the quality is now extraordinarily garbled. Peter's head is starting to hurt with it. The screechy audio grates against his eardrums, knocking persistently at his temples.
"Ugh. Can you just turn it off?"
"Hm?" is all Yondu grunts. He still hasn't looked away from his treasures, but his forehead has scrunched up in absentminded irritation at the constant interruption that is Quill.
Peter opens up one eye, as he's been squeezing both shut in response to another particularly loud screech in the track. The otherwise pleasant melody, with all it's choppiness and periods of distortion, is starting to give him the creeps. "Okay, dude, you're gonna tell me that doesn't drive you insane?"
Yondu tosses another figurine into his box, huffing at Peter. "What doesn't? The big, stupid Terran who won't get his yammerin' ass outta my copilot seat? He sure as hell does."
"There's a girl in this harbor town, and she works, laying whiskey down …"
"Ah. Ha-ha. I see. Real funny, old man," Peter rolls his eyes, once again resting his head to look up at the ceiling. Boy, does his head ache. "This is to get back at me for always blasting my stuff, right?"
"Alright, boy, the hell are you on about?" Yondu crabs, his admittedly tiny reserve of patience gone. Peter lowers his head to glare at Yondu, equally frustrated, especially as the track begins to skip and stutter out the same line, over and over: "He came on a summers day, bringing gifts from far away..." "The music, Yondu. The stupid song playing that, swear to God, is gonna make my head explode. Do you need me to spell it out more? What the heck else would I be 'on about'?"
Both men fall silent. Peter maintains his grumpy glare. Yondu looks genuinely, honestly confused as all get out, and a bit suspicious. He eyes the speaker above, brows pinched, tilting his head as if trying to hear something.
Finally he asks: "What song, Quill?"
The music is slowing itself down, now; the singers voice deepens and his words stretch out as though they're being pulled. The erratic beat times with the throbbing of Peter's head. Ice trickles up through his gut.
"The one you're playing, right now, on that garbage tape," he tries again, weaker this time; his confidence is steadily taking a nosedive as it dawns on him what may be happening, here.
Yondu eyeballs Peter scrutinizingly, seemingly attuned to Peter's strange, sudden shift in demeanor. Any trace of the captain's previous irritation has vanished.
"I ain't playin' a garbage tape," Yondu says slowly. "I ain't playin' music, period."
He's not lying.
"And the sailors say; Brandy, you're a fine girl, what a good wife you would be..."
"You- oh. You really don't hear it," Peter states meekly, his palms beginning to sweat even as the music is now fading away; quieter, quieter, and evermore into the background. Yondu's face is crinkled in a way that doesn't much hide concern.
"But my life, my lover, my lady..."
"Boy? Talk to me. What exactly are you hearin' that I'm not?"
"... is the sea."