Lost In translation: Part one, the morning after the night before.
Quill woke up after the horrors of the Collector's memory cell and enjoyed a moment of relative peace, in that sweet mindless way you only can when you've just woken up, not thinking about anything at all, and just with the vague sense that something bad had happened, but that it was all gone now and all there was to do was lay there and enjoy the calm and comfort of being in his own bed with someone next to him.
He'd fallen asleep with his Walkman on, and it was still playing, but that wasn't off itself unusual.
Awesome Mix tape vol 2: Chicago: twenty five, or six to four
He was just dozing off again when Gamora's communicator went off, and she swore once, and quietly slid herself off the bed and walked off, and up the stairs to the main body of the ship.
'Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say…'
Quill grunted, and rolled over, put out by the sudden loss of the body warmth, and it was only then that the thought Gamora was just in my bed hit him like a freight train pulling boxcars of hangover and returning memories, and he woke up as fast as if the ship had decompressed, and sat bolt upright with a horrified expression for the brief moment before he brained himself on the deck plate above his bunk and rolled off onto the floor swearing. The tape kept rolling
'Dancing lights against the sky
Giving up I close my eyes
Should have tried to do some more
Twenty five or six to four, oh yeah'
"Ahhhh! God dammit Quill you idiot!" he muttered to himself tangled in his sheets, clutching at his forehead while coloured stars bust in front of his eyes.
"Are you okay?" called down Gamora's voice from the top of the stair. Quill froze up.
Am I okay? Well let me see here now, I just woke up with no memory of even making it back to the ship, but I know I've drunk at least a bottle of whiskey by myself, I've been kidnaped and mentally tortured by a computer simulation of a madman who wants me to rescue his pet rock for him, and the single most dangerous woman I've ever met was just in my bed and I have zero memory of how or why that happened. Or even what happened. Did we… oh sweet Jesus, I have no idea what happed last night.
"Umm… yeah I'm cool." He said, clutching his sheet to his bare chest defensively and trying to pitch his voice as befitted a noble and daring starship captain, but with just enough wheedle to make it clear that grovelling was still an option if it turned out he'd said or done the wrong thing last night and Gamora suddenly came back down the stairs with a sword. "Just a little hung over, is all."
There was an amused feminine snort from upstairs. "You don't say? You want caffeine? I'm about to put a pot on."
Quill quickly ran that statement through every mental check he could, in case it was an early warning of violence to come, and then decided it was safe to answer with a non-comital "Sure. I mean… thank you, that would be nice." He said, scrabbling of the floor as stealthily as he could and trying to piece together contextual clues as to what had happened last night, specifically, if he and Gamora had had sex.
As opposed to what?" asked a tiny, default sarcastic part of his mind that never seemed to know when to shut up. As opposed to her just being too tried to walk to her bunk, a whole four feet away from yours?
"I was an emotional wreck. And badly drunk." He muttered to himself, trying to ignore the booze-fumes he was giving off as he scrabbled about his own possessions, negotiating with himself.
"Maybe she just sat up with me and we ended up falling asleep together. That happens. Hell, she could have just been trying to make sure I didn't swallow my tongue." He muttered, running a mental inventory of his things, and checking for clues with the hard earned experience of someone who had woken up in far too many strange bedrooms over the years. The evidence was… ambiguous.
He was wearing the same boxers from the night before: not the ones he'd had on in the Collector's place, he'd changed those as soon as he'd got back to the Milano because apparently a little bit of pee had actually come out during at least one part of that, probably during that memory of the drill-bit hitting Gamora's eye or the thermobarics, but still a pair of underpants he vaguely remembered putting on right before he hit the whiskey. These were not, however, his usual bed wear: he generally slept naked or put on a set of poplin PJ briefs if it was partially cold, so the fact that he was in the boxers from the day before was deeply unusual and an indicator that maybe nothing happened after all. He glanced sideways, and winced. His weapons, RCS belt, boots and Ravengers leathers were neatly laid out at the foot of his bed, far more neatly than he ever did, and his t-shirt was actually in the laundry bin rather than on the floor. That was an indicator that he'd been undressed by someone considerably more tidy than him, and on this ship that meant either Gamora or Drax, both terrifying prospects, but one far more likely given established facts so far. That said, Gamora's own clothing form the day before was dumped on her unslept in bed. He briefly wondered if that meant it had been ripped off in a fit of passion, in which case why was his folded, or if it just meant she was so exhausted from babysitting him while drunk she'd been too tired to tidy up after herself as well as him, in which case why had he woken up to find her in his bunk?
He glanced back at his bunk once, an then shook his head dismissively. He'd just fallen out of bed, it was always going to look a mess, and he was a classy gentleman and was not going to lower the tone my sniffing at his own sheeting or looking or a wet patch. he was peter jason Starloed Quill, scion of mighty Terra and legendary outlaw and all-round classy guy to date. Besides, there was no point: he hated wasting time and money at laundromats and given that the ship didn't have any laundry facilities of its own he'd invested in self-cleaning sheets a decade ago and not changed them since: they were stolen from an A'askavarian retirement complex, and bedding designed to cope with incontinence from a species with a smelting Cloaca could probably take a full blown multi-species orgy and still be cotton-fresh. The nanites in those sheets had been known to digest people who died in their sleep and their bacterial fuel cells metabolised sweat into something that smelt vaguely like vanilla: it wasn't living tissue or clothing, it identified it as dirt and dissolved it.
Quill ran his fingers thought his hair, thinking hard, and then pulled his hand back cautiously, and then sniffed at it. His hair was slightly damp, and didn't smell like his usual styling product. That meant either he'd showered , possibly after sex, and then been so drunk he'd forgotten about it, or Gamora had stuck him in the shower to try to sober him up. Or his hair was damp with sweat and the damn bed nanites had gone feral again and were eating his hair product, and given the amount the styling clay cost….
Stay focused. Said the sarcastic part of his mind. Besides, you're discounting the awful third option: drunken shower sex with a bare millimetre of sheet-metal bulkhead between the shower and Rocket's hammock.
Quill pulled a horrible face, before dismissing the idea. "You'd never fit two people in there, you can barely fit one." He said, scrabbling around, trying to find clean pants. He looked for a clean t-shirt, failed, and fished the least awful looking one out of the laundry bin.
As he was doing that, a thought struck him, and he fished out his pants from the day before, and went to check the little weird micro-pocket that he had the garb-printers add to all his pants because it reminded him of the tiny pocket in blue jeans and he was occasionally nostalgic like that, and then swore. The Collectors damn nano-wire razor-floss bullshit had clearly caught him at some point, probably when Rocket had shot him in the foot to stop him from rushing thought the damn stuff to get to the door, and the pocket was split and his prized collection of loose change that got stuck down there because his fingers were too fat to fish it out again was gone. But more importantly with the pocket shredded he couldn't check if his emergency condom was there or not. That said even if it had still been there, that didn't mean that nothing had happened, he had others: he might be the infamous Starlord of pelvic sorcery fame, but he wasn't an idiot, he always played it safe… or as safe as you could be while hiding naked on top of a four poster bed as an angry husband and Gavoran ducal guards ripped the room apart trying to find the intruder. He guessed he could take the head apart, see if there was the remains of a flushed condom in the septic system, but the centrifuge and biocontainment grid would have destroyed it instantly and frankly he'd had more than enough awful shit happen to him in the last twenty-four hours without climbing into his own toilet to hunt for extremely nasty corroborating evidence for his latest romantic liaison/misdeed/adventure/ you do know if you walk up to Gamora and ask "By the way, did we have sex last night?" and you didn't she will actually kill you right? And you know if you did and you don't talk to her about it like a responsible adult, also dead, right?
So in summary: no memory, no clues, and most definitely dead if the situation is in any way misread. D E D. That spells dead. Thought Quill, who in his defence was captured by hillbilly space pirates before he could complete middle-school level English. Spelling isn't everything.
Schrödinger's pity fuck: until I get confirmation from Gamora, I have both slept with and not slept with her. And like the cat, confirmation may well result in my sudden violent death because if we haven't and Imply we did, I've just offended the galaxy's top assassin when she was just trying to take care of me the day after she was forced to confront her heavy family issues in front of us... but if we have and I ignore it, or imply I'm indifferent to what just happened… oh god, either way I'm screwed. You done goofed, Peter. You done goofed. He thought, trying and failing to get his trousers on when Gamora's com bleeped again, and a Zen Whobri curse rang down the stairs.
"Peter, it's the Nova officer in charge of the peacekeeping fleet in orbit: they spotted the power surge from the memory cell, and he's just landed on Knowhere to look at what's left of the Collectors little trap and wants to know what the hell is going on. I have to deal with this, I'll be back soon, and we can talk. Okay?"
Quill hesitated, and then replied "Sure. See you later." In the light and breezy tones of someone desperately trying to keep his voice calm.
He stood there for a long moment half in and half out of his pants, with a raging thirst, pounding headache and no memory of the night before and despite the situation, the very real risk that he might have messed up the team dynamic that allowed five extremely dangerous people to work together without killing each other, a small, quiet part of his brain thought, almost wistfully:
Either way this is a pity: even if nothing happened and Gamora just stayed with you all night to comfort you, that's still a really sweet gesture and one I'd like to remember.
"God, I'm going soft in my old age: nineteen year old me would be more upset about if I'd somehow forgotten sex." He muttered, pulling a T-shirt over his head and walking cautiously up the stairs to the common room of the Milano. He needed to work out what had happed, he needed to sort his life out in a way that was respectful to Gamora and whatever had just happened, but right now, he needed caffeine and some scrambled eggs. Stat. On some sort of intravenous drip if at all reasonably possible.
Groaning slightly: his muscles ached from standing still so long in that damn memory cell, Quill pulled himself into the main room and began to trudge towards the tiny kitchenette that went by the improbably grandiose name of the galley.
A helping tendril gripped him by the wrist and gave him a boost up the last stair.
"Thanks Groot." He muttered, as the Tree man gave him a helping pull upwards: he was still a little unsteady on his feet, and he realised he was still half-drunk from the night before. Some of the memories of the awful things the Collector had showed them last night came back to him, and he paused.
"Hey Groot, are you… are you okay Big Guy?"
Groot paused, and gave him a look that was both sad and sympathetic, before smiling and grabbing him with two tendrils in what Quill, after a moment of blind panic, realised was a pretty close approximation of a hug.
"I am Groot." He rumbled, in a tone that was clearly supposed to be comforting.
"U-huh. You don't say?" squeaked Quill as best he could with his face pressed into rough bark. "Gee Groot, thanks." He said, rapidly losing feeling in his limbs and the ability to breathe due to constriction. Just when he was beginning to panic that he was going to get temporarily absorbed into Groot like that poor Cop on the last planet, Groot let him go, and gave him a comforting pat on the head which nearly concussed him for the second time that day.
"I am Groot." Said Groot, wisely, before lumbering off to the big view port at the back of the common area to catch some rays: according to Rocket, Groot preferred the taste of natural sunshine to artificial light, particularly in the mornings, a statement that at the same time raised a whole bunch of questions and, weirdly, made way too much sense to Quill for him to put it into words.
Staggering slightly as he exited the hug, Quill mometarly leaned on a bulkhead for support as he tied to work the kink out of his back from that hug and wondered how you knew if you'd slipped a disk or not, when a second booming voice called out.
"Starlord!"
Quill glanced up. "Oh hey Drax I… ooff!" he said, as Drax dropped a hand on Quill's shoulder in what the tattooed warrior probably fondly imagined was a manful and no-nonsense greeting and reassuring fatherly shoulder squeeze, but was in fact, Quill was pretty sure, the Vulcan nerve pinch.
"Peter Quill, I must at this time make clear my deepest thanks and admiration for your actions in that mercurial madman's infernal memory prison! My shame and sadness at the loss of my family and the unjust and violent actions I took to cope with my feelings of loss shame me, and were it not for your bravery and belief in the fact that I am at some level still the person my family once knew, then I would have been trapped there still!"
"Umm, well thanks Drax, You'd have done he same for me and could I please have my arm back now, oh God, not another hug!" he said, as Drax barked what might have been laughter just once, and then took Quill in a one-armed, fatherly hug that was if anything more bone-crushing than Groot's.
"Ha! You jest! No, in all seriousness without your swift and timely action we would all surely have perished or been trapped by this so-called Collector. I owe you a debt, Peter Quill. You saved me from my own worse memories. Before, we were a team, as a family, but not. Now, from this day forth, you are as a brother to me Peter Quill! My blades are your blades, my food is your food, my quest is your quest! If ever you need aid, or succour, or guidance, or someone's organs ripped out and laid as bloody tribute at your feet, simply ask, and it is yours!"
"Ummm… Thanks?"
"Excellent!" said Drax, taking Quill at an arm's length and laying both hands on his shoulder, practically nailing him thought the deck-plates. "Excellent! Anything ever you need, ask, and I will get it for you, on the memory of my wife Hovat and Daughter Kamaria, if it is in my power to give it shall be yours, or I shall die trying!"
"Ummm… Thanks?" said Quill. after a moment it became clear that Drax wasn't going to move or let go of his shoulders until Quill made a more meaningful response than that.
"Umm... anything at all?"
"Be it infinity stones, the famed jewel-birds of Naath, Kalmerian Spice or the skulls of your enemies, be it the legendary weapons of Asgard or Grabthar's Hammer or the Shield-maidens of Gor, ask and it shall-"
"Could I have a glass of water? Please?" asked Quill, desperate to get out of this before he died of acute embarrassment.
Drax paused, his expression unreadable.
"A glass of water."
"If it's not too much trouble… little hungover."
Drax paused, and then turned through 90 degrees without moving his feet, and, not taking his eyes of Quill, got a glass out of one of the overhead lockers, filled it from the tap, and handed it to Quill.
"Ah. Thank you…" said Quill, holding the water awkwardly. Drax just stood there, watching him .
"Well, bottoms up I guess. Cheers!" said Quill, taking a drink from the glass. Drax didn't even break eye contact, just stood there watching Quill as if waiting for him to finish the glass and start demanding the skulls of enemies or something. Quill decided the safest thing to do was just finish the water in one, leading to an increasingly uncomfortable ten seconds as he just kept drinking and drinking while Drax stared blankly at him.
Gulp… gulp… gulp… gulp…
Quill finished, coughing and choking back the last of the water, before raising the glass in a slight toasting gesture, and managing to splutter.
"Oh, yeah, yep, ahhhh that hit the spot all right. Sooo… I'm going to go over here now." He said, handing the huge man the glass back and gesturing away from Drax. "Not that this hasn't been great, but if this gets any more awkward, I'm going to need nails to gouge my own eyes out with to end this moment sooo…."
"Do you require me to fetch nails?"
"No, no. I think I'll mange, but thanks for the offer." He said, turning and fleeing to behind the shelter offered by the refrigerator door. He was just sighing with relief as he ducked behind the door, and collided with a small furred body below the height of his gaze. He let out a panicked and not at all girly scream before common sense kicked back in, and he managed to turn his cowardly yell-and-jump combo into a "Heeeeey there Rocket, how're you doing?" as he leaned on the fridge door and gave a double-pistol thumbs up like the Fonz.
"Captured and forced to mentally re-live some of the worst physical and mental torture of my life in front of you morons while people watched. Fine. Peachy. How are you star-dork?"
He muttered, surly and shifty, as he openly and blatantly stole the last slice of purple Ube cake Quill had been saving for himself and watched Quill through suspiciously slitted eyes as if daring Quill to comment on the emotional breakdown he'd had the night before.
Quill mentally cursed himself for not handling that better: none of them had exactly fared well in the Collector's trap, but after the shit Rocket in particular had been through Quill felt like a real asshole for not broaching the subject better. The guy was a real mess the night before, and clearly still feeling it: Quill still couldn't tell when Rocket was lying or not, but he'd got some of his emotional tells spotted by now, and his personal hygiene was one. Normally he didn't bother with showering more than once a week because he didn't sweat or develop any body-odour other than warm oily fur, but the more stressed he was, the more he washed and groomed himself: the racoon's voice was his usual gruff anger, and his facial expression sneering and superior, his hands steady, but his fur shone and he'd done a full-on Lady Macbeth on his paws by the look of it. Quill realised that he was acting like an ass, and lowered his voice, and adopted a tone of quiet, brotherly concern.
"Hey, Rock… you did just great yesterday… hell you're the only one who made it to the fucking door, and I'm sorry we had to see all that, truly, so … you know. Hell, Groot and Drax have already hugged me this morning, so do you want-"
"-everyone to shut up, fuck off, and die in a house-fire? Yes. Although, if you're really feeling that emotionally needy, Quill, you can kiss my mangy furred ass if you like." Scowled the racoon. "You want to dispense morally-uplifting blowjobs to everyone, that's your shout, ship's councillor, but leave me out of it." He said, engulfing the cake and sending crumbs spraying everywhere as he glared, and chewed and swallowed, his eyes searching Quill's face, as if daring him to show any judgement or pity towards him about last night, and not knowing how to deal with that Quill froze up in a horrified grimace. It's kind of hard to help someone who doesn't want my pity, but he still needs me to be there for him.
Rocket snarled, and bared his teeth, the menace only slight undermined by the vividly purple sponge-cake he was chewing thought, but after a moment he swallowed and nodded, clearly finding nothing more than usually objectionable in Quill's face, and Quill became aware of a very small, very hot hand grasping his. He looked down. Rocket had taken one of his hands with a paw, forced Quill's hand open, and then handed him a chunk of cake with the other paw. It was weird, but given how protective and territorial Rocket was with, well, everything, but food in particular, and how he tended to associate accesses to food as a means of control, it was a surprisingly sweet gesture of trust. Rocket immediately turned away, ignoring Quill and acting as it nothing had happened.
"Pass, the caffeine pot, star-dork. Gamora's left it on the top shelf again, and I ain't climbing all the way up there this time of day." He said, helping himself to two mugs as he chewed, and passing one to Quill who took it without comment, because this was a very tender moment by Rocket's psychotic standards, and he didn't want to hurt the racoons feeling by saying or doing anything dumb. And also, he fully believed that Rocket would shoot him in the dick if he misplayed this in any way.
"You… I…. You realise I never talked to anyone about this other than Groot, right? I mean, I trust you guys, and that's important to me, more that friendship or comfort or lov… or any of that stuff. Trust. Love is a sentiment for children and frickin' idiots. Love is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. But trust, trust now… but even so, there are things there that I really didn't want you to see." He said, accepting the caffeine pot from Quill with a nod, and filling his mug before passing it back wordlessly. He paused for a moment, staring ito space and clenching and unclenching his paw on the handle of his mug.
"If it helps, there was shit in there that I really didn't want to see either. Like… all of it." And he managed to get a snort out of Rocket that may have been laughter.
"Yeah well, you may be stupid, but you ain't crazy. Heh, the shit people carry with them…"
"Yeah." Said "Quill. "People are weird like that. I guess you just have to develop a healthy coping mechanism for when shit gets too dark to face so you can get on with life. I use humour."
"You use humour? Well when you want to start, you be sure to let me know. But sure, you've got to have a healthy coping mechanism…" said the racoon. As he did, Quill became aware of a soft glugging noise and a smoky, peaty smell glink glink glink…
He looked down. Rocket had pulled the side-panel off the fridge, and pulled a bottle of whiskey out and was rapidly turning his caffeine into some sort of improvised Irish coffee. The synthetic caffeine you got in the Xandar empire wasn't quite like real coffee, but the whiskey looked real enough, so half-way to Irish coffee, just wrong in every particular. Boston coffee? Quill thought.
"Seriously Rocket? Dude it's like, eleven in the mourning. That is not a good coping mechanism."
Rocket cocked his chin up in the air, and sniffed, theatrically, whiskers twitching and mouth part open, tasting the air, and Quill became very aware of the fact that he smelt like a brewery that had collided with a St Patrick's day parade. During spring break. In a minibar.
"Okay, fair point." He muttered, helping himself to caffeine and, after a moment's self-doubt, deciding that it couldn't make him feel worse than he already was and taking a hair of the Racoon from Rocket's bottle.
"Okay, so I hit it pretty hard last night, but that was a one off. I'm not as used to this shit as you are. Hell, I don't think I could survive drinking like you do. Hell, I don't even remember much of last night…." He said, suddenly realising that he could take advantage of this bonding moment to fish for information about what had happened between him and Gamora. "I mean, I wish I could, but after I got back to the ship, it's all a blur.
Rocket snorted. "You got home, you drank my whiskey… I've added the cost to the Milano maintenance bill, by the way, you had a little cry, you passed out. You know: needy Terran shit. Nothing too special." said the racoon, swigging his caffeine.
Oh thank god for that. Thought Quill. Bad news: I didn't get it on with Gamora. Good news: I didn't get it on with Gamora. This makes it way less awkward than if we'd got drunk and slept with each other. He though, smiling to himself and taking a deep swig of caffeine and relief.
Rocket topped up his caffeine with whiskey, not even looking at Quill, and casually said.
"So: you and Gamora finally slept together."
Quill's cheeks bulged, and he sprayed boiling hot caffeine across the galley , coughing and choking and gagging as red hot liquid and burning whiskey went up his sinuses and came out of his nose.
After some time he felt both compelled and able to talk.
"Jesus! Did you have to do that when I had a mouth of hot caffeine? You waited for me, I mean, you waited on purpose man!"
Rocket leaned back on the bulkhead, and took a slurp of his caffeine and shrugged.
"Sure. I had a bet going I could get you to spray a full meter." He said, holding out his other paw and snapping his fingers. Quill heard an exasperated groan from behind him, and then Groot leaned over from behind the fridge door, presenting his credit slip to Rocket with much bad grace. The racoon grinned at Quill, crossed his arms casually across his narrow chest and pressed his thumbprint to the slip. Quill saw the electro-filmy of the strip light up, stating the amount transferred, and what annoyed Quill more than anything else was that the bet was apparently for a single unit.
"I… You… you heard?" asked Quill, suddenly finding himself mortally embarrassed.
Rocket gave him a look.
"We're in a tin can with recirculated air and no soundproofing. With my senses? You don't breathe without me knowing about it, much as I wish that wasn't that case at times. There are some things I'd rather not know, here and in prison particularly. Did I notice? Hell yeah. Groot and Drax too."
Quill sunk into a crouch, head in his hands.
"Oh god, I've screwed up. I don't remember anything about what happened, Rock! Not a thing about what went down, and when Gamora gets back, were going to have to discuss what happed like adults. I can't adult, I don't know how to, with the exception of renting movies I've never gone adult in my life! I would say I can just about manage to do dog, but that cosmonaut guy has me beat at that too! Help me!"
"Heh, you made your bed, you have to sleep in it. Literally in this case."
"Rocket! I… hell, I don't even know want happened!" he said, looking at Rocket. The raccoon balked, and folded his paws across his chest, defensively.
"You slept with Gamora, sheash, dumb humie, do I have to paint to a picture? Because I really, really don't want to: I have neither the time, inclination or crayons to explain shit to you. If you can't remember that's on you, I'm not filling in the blanks for you, loverboy."
"Oh god… do, do you think I was… you know… gave a good account of myself? Was I any good?"
Rocket shock his head, dismissively. "Never at anything in your life, so why should this be different? And secondly, ew. What sort of question is that? Who even asks that?"
Quill begin to bang his head against the fridge. He'd done goofed, badly, and pretty soon Gamora was going to get back, and he'd need to talk it over like and adult. And he had no clue how in the world to do that: a lifetime of one-night stands and emotionaly defective relationships with psychos like Yondu as role-models had left him emotionaly unprepared for this.
He said as much to Rocket.
"Rock, a lifetime of one-night stands and emotionaly defective relationships with psychos like Yondu as role-models have left me emotionally unprepared for shit like this… what do I do? What do I say?"
Rocket scratched his ear briefly, with one claw, the other still folded across his chest, and then started counting off on his claws.
"Okay Quill, one… you're assuming that I'll give you good, heartfelt advice and not lie to you for my own sick gratification and amusement… you have met me, right? Two, you're assuming that I'm not a complete emotional fuck up and I can process situations like this better that you can, so I refer you to point one, appendix one, you have frickin' met me, right? Three, I'm not your species, in fact, neither is Gamora: any advice I can give you won't be necessarily relevant because I don't know how humans feel about these things, and even if I did, I don't know if Zen Whoberi feel the same way . Hell, I'm not even strictly speaking humanoid, and my previous emotionally fulfilling relationships are a deeply fucked up 'we're all about to die so why not' wartime fling with an overly idealistic otter, and a long term sexless friendship with a frickin' tree. Hardly relevant to your situation…. Or so I hope. And finally, I never even saw a bed, let alone two people in one, until I went to prison, so my preconceptions on two people sharing a bed tend to either involve drug money changing hands before hand, or a punch to the face counting as foreplay. So, to recap, why exactly are you asking me for advice again? You're the one with the experience, the, and this is in huge quotation marks here, the pelvic sorcery, and apparently what passes for the functional social skills on this ship. You fix it."
Quill groaned, and banged his head on the fridge.
"I fucked up." He said, more or less to himself.
"Yes. Yes you did. Would you like me to start a frickin' tally?" asked Rocket, passing him another chunk of cake. "Ube?" he asked. "It's actually pretty good."
Quill groaned, and banged his head on the fridge harder.
"Oh God, I fucked up, I fucked up I fucked UP!" he said, banging his head into the enameled metal harder and harder and harder.
There was a small, sad noise best described as scrunch-fizz and Quill became aware of something falling from behind his ear, and there was a sudden blare of tinnitus in his ear, like the feedback from a mic at a rock concert, and a stab of pain in the side of his neck.
"Huh?" Asked Quill, grabbing at his ear "What the fuck was that?"
Rocket shrugged. "Hoe de fok moet ek weet? O, julle vertaler val uit, jy gek!" said the racoon, in a growing, rasping voice.
"Huh?" said Quill, suddenly afraid and confused. Rocket pointed, and He looked down. There was a strange lump of metal and circuitry on the floor, and Quill realised with a jolt that at some point in the Collectors cell, possibly when throwing himself into force-fields, he'd damaged the translator built into his folding helmet. His vigorous head-butting of the fridge had shaken a loose part out, and it had fallen and broken on the floor, and suddenly his 'I'll do it tomorrow' attitude to actually learning Xandarian or any of the major languages of the galaxy suddenly didn't seem quite so academic a problem.
"Shit." He said, turning to Rocket. "I think I just broke my translator!"He said.
The racoon gave him a blank look, and then picked up the broken piece of circuitry, passing it over paw to paw. He then looked to Quill, and let out a stream of words that Quill couldn't follow. The raccoon then tapped behind his ear, and then held a paw behind his own ear, mining listening and understanding, before coking his head on one side questioningly. Quill got the charade.
"No! I can't understand a word you're saying! Can you understand me?"
Rocket turned the broken device over several times, addressing it, clearly talking about if it could be fixed or not. "Verstaan jy? Goed dit sou snaaksste wees om nee sê, sodat daar geen. Hey, vanoggend raak byna draaglik!" he said, before turning the device in his paws, and giving a thumbs down, after a while he fetched a soldering iron and begun to poke at it, before nodding in the direction of the ship's chronometer, and then holding up four fingers and adding. "Ag, en vir wat dit werd is, ek het gesê jy en Gamora geslaap, ek het nooit gesê dat jy seks gehad het, Frickin'dom menslike." with a meaningful racoonish glace towards the hour counter.
"Four hours? You've got to be kidding me! I need that fixed before Gamora gets home from-"
There was the slam of the lower airlock, and Gamora's voice rang out, and while Quill could recognise the voice, he found with a jolt of horror that he couldn't understand a singe word.
"Ummm. Hi?" he called out. "Up here?"
Gamora came up the steps, and addressed hi with a fairly cheerful expression, and then paused, clearly waiting for an answer.
"Errrm…" said Peter Quill, when he realised he was about to have the most difficult conversation of his life, and he couldn't understand a word that was being said.
"Oh darn."
