Hello everyone! Hope you're all doing well! Sorry for the long gap but this chapter spiraled a bit; it ended up being much longer than I originally planned but oh well! Hope you all enjoy it!

"So I might not be making it to the rendezvous point after all…"

He can practically hear the eye roll on the other end on his comm. "What'd ya do this time, idiot?"

Peter balks at the accusation. "Why do you always assume it's my fault?"

"Because 99.9% of the time it is yer fault," Yondu counters and yeah, okay, Peter doesn't really have rebuttal for that because technically it's true. A good majority of the trouble Peter gets himself into is more or less generated by him but still, this time it's not his fault. Mostly.

"My ship was damaged when I was trying to get off-planet," he explains, packing the laser discs into his satchel and securing it over his shoulder. He'd nearly gotten himself shot trying to retrieve these so he sure as hell isn't about to lose track of them now. "The engine is pretty much shot so I had to make an emergency landing."

There's a muffled curse on the other line. "How bad? Can ya fix it?"

Peter stares at the burning wreckage of his ship and shakes his head slowly even though no one else is there to see it. "That would be a negative. The 'emergency landing' was more of a crash landing and what wasn't damaged during my escape was damaged when I pin-balled it off a mountain range."

"You have got to be the most incompetent, useless Ravager-" Yondu grumbles on the other line, his words disappearing behind the crackle of fire and burning metal. The ship isn't just a little damaged, it's totalled, and no amount of tinkering or patchwork would get it up and running again. Had the Djorin enforcers following him not shot out his central engine he would have been able to outrun them no problem. But one of them happened to get a lucky shot off and the resulting damage instantly crippled his ship. Shame too, he was really starting to like this ship…

"-ill."

"Quill!"

Peter blinks and looks away from the wreckage of his ship. "Huh?"

"I asked if ya got the discs."

He nods and his hand goes to the satchel absently. "Yeah, the discs are good."

There's a gruff sound probably accompanied by a nod. "What about you?"

"Huh?"

"You good?"

Peter goes quiet for a second, taking stock of himself. For such a shitty landing he was relatively unharmed. Sure, he'd been rattled around the cabin like a maraca during the descent and he'd smacked his head against a window but for the most part he was fine. His only complaint is his left arm; he'd jammed his shoulder against the side of the ship while it was tumbling to a stop and he's pretty sure it's dislocated. There's a slick, stickiness under his sleeve that makes him pretty sure it's bleeding somewhere but he's not sure of the source. Maybe it's the adrenaline but he really doesn't feel any pain; his arm just feels solid and heavy at his side like he's lugging around a tree branch.

"I'm fine."

"Yer full'a shit."

Peter rolls his eyes and amends his previous statement. "I'm fine except for my arm; I jacked it up in the crash."

"Long as ya still have an arm I ain't worried," Yondu tells him although there's a noticeable tightness in his voice. "Where'd ya land?"

He'd been a little too distracted trying to get out of his burning ship when he first landed to figure out where he was but now he's starting to realize he might have another problem on his hands. The unbroken white landscape that stretches out in every direction and the snow and ice that kicks up against his boots with each piercing gust of wind makes it pretty clear he landed on an ice planet.

The broad expanse of the sky is a deep, hostile grey with dark, gunmetal-colored clouds rolling tumultuously overhead. There's a dull grey outline in the distance that might be a mountain range but it's too far away to know for sure. Luckily, none of the Djorins decided to follow so at least he has that going for him.

He fumbles with the navigation system on his comm for a second and watches as it flickers to life and gives him a brief summary of his coordinates. "Looks like I'm on a planet called Tryph, it's an ice dwarf on the outskirts of the Melorian quadrant."

There's another soft curse on the other end of the line. "The Melorian quadrant? How the hell did you end up there?"

"Believe me, it wasn't my first choice," Peter snaps back, trying to keep his teeth from chattering as he speaks. It's cold, a bitter, piercing kind of cold that cuts straight through his clothes and the smoldering heat of his wrecked ship. "I was just trying to land somewhere before my ship blew up."

"Yeah, well now ya got another problem on yer hands, idiot," Yondu tells him sharply. "From the sound of it yer definitely not gettin' off planet on yer own. And there ain't nobody close by or any way to get to you anytime soon which means yer stranded til then. See the problem here?"

Peter looks at the smoldering wreckage of his ship and nods. "Yep."

He turns his attention to the blurry shape of the maybe-mountain range in the distance. If he can get there it may provide some kind of shield against the ice and snow. It's definitely better than sitting around here in the middle of a frozen tundra with nothing.

"I think I can make it to the mountains."

"What?"

Peter blinks at the question; he didn't realize he'd said that out loud. "There's a mountain range a couple miles away," he clarifies, squinting at the imposing, blurry shape in the distance. "I think I can make it there and find some kind of shelter."

There's a huff of agreement on the other line. "Well, it's better than nothin'," Yondu allows, clearly still irritated with the situation at hand. "Might keep yer dumb ass from freezin' to death before we can get to ya."

"Solid plan."

"Stop yappin' an' start walkin', boy," comes the blunt retort. "Talkin' ain't gonna keep ya warm when the temperature drops."

"Got it," Peter says, readjusting the satchel on his shoulder and walking away from the wreckage of his ship. He wrestles a long strip of cloth from his pocket and loops it around his neck in a vain attempt to keep the snow off his skin. "Just a leisurely hike through the snow. No big deal."

The temperature drops immediately the second he's away from his still smoldering ship, a cold, sharp wind piercing through his clothes and causing his injured arm to ache down to the bone. He clenches his teeth and pushes forward. Walking will help him stay warm and with any luck he'll be able to find some kind of shelter once he reaches the mountains. He can hope, at least.

OOOOO

Of fucking course Peter crash-landed on an ice planet. Yondu is really beginning to wonder if the kid pissed off some kind of cosmic deity because he has the worst luck of anyone he's ever met in his life. Seriously, the boy is a walking Murphy's Law; if something bad is going to happen, it will happen to Peter Quill. It was kind of funny at first but now it's just getting ridiculous.

Yondu is already up and moving the second the transmission cuts off, making his way down the lower hangars in search of a smaller ship. He doesn't know much about Tryph but he knows enough about ice planets to know that Peter can't survive there for very long and there's no way to reach him in time in a large ship like this.

He finds a small, discarded shuttle in the back of the lower hangar that should work. It's an older model, used for cargo mostly, but it's functional and that's all that matters. Better still, the engine and propulsion systems had been upgraded recently to make it faster and more agile for high-pay jobs that required a fast getaway. The smaller model and its added speed should get him to Tryph in half the time it would take to get the larger ship that distance.

He's about to slide into the pilot seat when a voice catches his attention. "Goin' somewhere, Cap'n?"

Yondu turns to see Kraglin watching him carefully. His first mate doesn't sound suspicious or wary, just curious. The Ravager captain nods once in response to the question. "Tryph."

Kraglin quirks an eyebrow at the answer. "Why the hell would ya wanna go to place like that?"

"Quill wrecked his ship there so now I gotta go rescue his dumb ass. Should be able to get there in a couple hours in this ship." He drops into the pilot seat and plugs the coordinates into the ship's navigation system. "Keep the others from killin' each other til' I get back, yeah?"

"You got it," Kraglin says with a nod, stepping back as the shuttle disembarks and makes its way to the nearest port before slipping silently out into space. The disappearance of the Ravager Captain shouldn't raise too much suspicion if it's only for a few hours and if it does, well he'll just deal with it when he gets back.

The navigation system puts the trip at roughly six hours, four if he cuts through an asteroid belt outside of the Alcron moon system. The asteroid belt would be a tricky shortcut, especially since many of the asteroids around Alcron possess varying levels of magnetism and tend to cling to and sometimes even destroy ships that get too close, but if it shaves two hours off his trip, Yondu is willing to take the risk.

He charts the course, pulls the route up on the holoscreen, and heads off toward Tryph.

OOOOO

Honestly, screw this planet.

It's cold, it's dark, there's ice caking the front of his pants; overall there are just no redeeming qualities to Tryph as far as Peter is concerned. He doesn't know how long he's been walking or how far he's gone; all he knows is that the plume of smoke rising from his smoldering ship has disappeared behind ever thickening flurries of snow.

The mountains look marginally closer now but it's hard to tell to be honest. Between the snow and the wind, it's hard to tell if they really are closer or if it's just a trick of the light. Peter likes to think they're closer, at least; it makes him feel better if nothing else.

The communicator on his belt chirps once and he wouldn't have noticed it at all if it hadn't buzzed against his hip at the same time. He staggers to a stop and fumbles for the device, his cold fingers clumsy and useless as he paws at it. He's finally able to pull it loose and activate the channel, the scowling blue face of his captain appearing on the screen.

"How's it goin', brat?" Yondu asks without introduction.

Peter opens his mouth to speak but his teeth are chattering so much it's difficult to form words. "C-c-cold," he stammers after a second. Had he known he was going to be trekking through a blizzard today he would have packed a thicker jacket.

There's a huff on the other line. "Yeah, well that's what happens when ya crash on an ice planet," Yondu mutters as if Peter needs the reminder. "You any closer to those mountains?"

Peter looks up, squinting against the hard, cold wind. "T-think so," he says, pulling his jacket a little tighter across his chest. His injured arm has gone almost completely numb and he can't tell if it's from the cold or the swelling. It doesn't hurt as much though which is something of an improvement (eve if it's for the wrong reasons). He keeps telling himself if he can just reach the mountains and get out of this wind things will be better. If he's honest with himself, though, the mountains still look incredibly far away.

"Just keep movin'," the Ravager captain orders from the other side of the communicator. "I'm headin' that way now but it's still gonna be a couple hours before I reach ya. Find somewhere to hunker down til' then, got it?"

Peter nods, a jerky, spastic movement that he's not entirely in control of. "G-got it," he stutters, closing the communicator and hooking it back onto his belt. He looks up again and this time the mountains actually do look a little closer. It could be his imagination but he clings to it and keeps walking.

OOOOO

Yondu bites back a curse; this situation is a lot worse than he thought. Peter is not doing well and he's still too far away to provide any kind of useful assistance. The kid is still walking and at least semi-functional but it's clear that the cold is beginning to take its toll. He might not know everything about Terran biology but he knows they're not equipped to deal with sub-zero temperatures for very long. The best thing Peter can do now is find shelter but that's a weak, temporary solution; it does nothing against the cold and ice and it's not going to help him regain body heat. Still, it's better than nothing and that's all he really has going for him right now.

He glares at the map laid out by the navigation system. Even cutting through the Alcron system is still going to put him over an hour out and that's if he manages to get through it without damaging his ship.

The scattered asteroid field looms ahead of him, large chunks of rock and debris creating a thick band that stretches for miles in either direction. They look deceptively harmless, just masses of space rock floating weightlessly in the dark void, but he knows better. There have been plenty of larger, much more durable ships that have tried to pass through the Alcron belt and gotten smashed to bits in the process. Getting through here will take a lot of precision and concentration, distractions of any kind could get him killed. So of course Peter decides to call back at that exact moment.

Yondu grumbles to himself but activates the call anyway, dividing his attention between the asteroid belt and the incoming message. "What d'ya want, brat?" he growls a bit more harshly than he means to as a large asteroid lumbers past his ship.

"I r-r-reached the m-mountains," Peter informs him, his voice thin and breathless over the howl of the wind.

Yondu feels a tinge of relief at that but it doesn't last long because he's still trying to navigate through an increasingly dense cosmic minefield. "Well, what d'ya want, a medal? Go look for shelter."

Peter mutters something probably unflattering under his breath and stumbles forward. His movements are jerky and slow on the screen and it looks like he's doing a lot more staggering than walking. Granted, the kid had never been all that coordinated but it's much worse now because of the cold.

"This is t-too much snow," Peter mumbles, kicking his way through a packed hill as he climbs onto a lower ridge. "'S not even g-good snow…"

"What, ya never had snow down in Misery or wherever yer from?"

"Missouri," Peter corrects petulantly, stumbling along a ridgeline toward an outcropping of rock. He shakes his head and glares at the snow-powdered rocks around him. "S-snows there too b-but not like this."

A sharp, violent shudder suddenly rocks the ship as one of the smaller asteroids bounces itself off the side. Yondu curses and turns his attention back to the belt, dodging another chunk of rock that comes dangerously close to impact as well. "Yeah, well that snow ain't gonna stop anytime soon so ya need to find some way to get out of it."

Peter isn't listening to him; he's mumbling to himself, and endless chatter of nonsense that runs from one sentence to the next. He's talking about snow plows or snow blowers or something about the snow but it's all jumbled together in a confusing mess.

Yondu frowns and looks back at the screen. Peter's eyes are glazed and his skin is too pale and his slurred ramble is now significantly more worrisome than the asteroids around his ship. "Peter," he says, trying to catch the mumbling teen's attention. "Ay! Quill! You better answer me, boy!"

It had the desired effect and Peter slowly stops talking and turns his attention back to the communicator.

"You need to find shelter right now, ya hear me? I don't care where but ya need to get outta the snow."

Peter nods once, slowly, and staggers off to the right. His foot slips on something, ice or a rock, it's hard to tell, and Peter tumbles into the snow, landing heavily on his knees. For a moment he doesn't move and the only sound that comes across the transmission feed is the howl of the wind and the sound of his ragged breathing.

"Peter," Yondu says, physically wrestling down the panic in his voice. The image feed is all white, the communicator wedged in the snow from Peter's fall. The wind is still howling and he doesn't even know if the teen can hear him over it. "Peter!"

It takes a long, agonizing second but the communicator is eventually retrieved from the snow and Peter's face comes back into view.

"Get up, brat, ya gotta keep movin'," Yondu tells him shortly, his relief at seeing the boy's face again dissipating as he maneuvers around another chunk of rock.

"'S too c-cold…" Peter mumbles back, blinking rapidly as snow begins to cake in his eyelashes.

"Yeah, I know it's cold, dumbass, but ya gotta get up an' find shelter or yer gonna die. Understand?"

Peter says something in response but its lost in the howl of the wind. He looks confused and lost, looking out across the jagged landscape like he can't quite make sense of it. His condition is deteriorating rapidly and if he doesn't get help soon, there's a good chance he'll die on that planet.

"Quill, get up. Right now." Yondu puts as much force as he can into the words, gritting his teeth as he continues to cut through the asteroid belt. "I ain't gonna tell ya again, boy."

It had the desired effect, the Ravager captain's voice activating some kind of instinctual response in Peter, and he slowly rises to his feet. It takes another second or so but he eventually starts shuffling forward again, heading in the direction of a an outcropping of rock. The feed cuts out briefly and for a terrible second Yondu fears the transmission has cut out altogether. The picture filters back in a second or so later, dark and shrouded but still there. From the murky image on the screen, it looks like Peter ducked into a cave or something similar.

"Good, that's good," Yondu tells him, nodding in approval as he dodges another wayward asteroid. "Now just stay put and keep yerself outta the wind an' snow 'til I get there, understand? I ain't too far away now."

He thinks he sees Peter nod but it's hard to tell in the darkness of the cave. "I'm n-not shivering as much anymore so t-that's good, right?"

The Ravager captain sighs and shakes his head. "No, brat, that ain't good; mean's your body's shuttin' down." He scrubs a hand over his face and looks back out across the asteroid field. It's beginning to clear, the spaces between the rocks larger and easier to pass through. He wants to push forward faster but he can't risk damaging his ship trying to get to Peter either.

Peter mumbles something but the it's just a mass of syllables and letters.

"What's that?"

It takes a worrying amount of time for Peter to respond. His back is pressed against the cold wall of the cave and he's pulled his knees up to his chest to try and conserve as much body heat as he can. There's snow in his hair and his eyes look glassy and unfocused "'M tired…"

"Listen to me," Yondu says slowly, resisting the urge to yell when he speaks; he's worried, he can't even deny it now. Peter's body is shutting down and it won't be long before he loses consciousness completely and faces the very real possibility of freezing to death. He clears the last few asteroids blocking his path and keeps his attention focused on the screen. "I need ya to stay awake, alright? No matter how much ya wanna sleep, you stay awake, ya hear me? I'll kick yer ass from here to Sunday if I find out you fell asleep, Quill."

"'K."

"I mean it, boy. You stay awake or there's gonna be hell to pay." He tries to think of something a bit more substantial because the brat only takes his threats at face value nowadays, the cocky little shit. "Start hummin'."

"Wha-?"

"Ya heard me," Yondu snaps, increasing his speed once he's certain he's clear of the asteroid belt. "Start hummin' one'a those dumb songs from your Walkman. That stupid pine cone song or whatever."

"Piña Colada," Peter corrects sluggishly, the words tumbling out of his mouth like each one weighs a ton. He takes the suggestion to heart, though, and starts humming the melody quietly. It's faltering and disjointed but if it keeps him focused and at least somewhat conscious Yondu will take it.

"Atta boy," he mutters in approval, checking the coordinates on his consol again. If his map is correct, he should reach Tryph in a little under forty minutes. Problem is Peter may not have that long. He pushes the ship as hard as he can, a muscle in his jaw tightening as Peter's humming becomes softer. "Just hang tight, brat. I'm on my way."

OOOOO

By the time he reaches Tryph, Yondu is nearly in a panic. He'd lost contact with Peter nearly fifteen minutes before he reached the planet's surface and no amount of pleading, threatening or cajoling could get the boy to respond to him. The humming had stopped, the video feed from the communicator was fixed on one wall of the cave, and no matter how much he tried to ignore it, Yondu couldn't push aside the cold, nauseating realization that he might be too late.

He picks up the signal from Peter's communication device just as he clears the stratosphere, the burned out wreckage of his ship appearing as a small black splotch in an otherwise completely white landscape. The mountain range he'd been talking about appears in the distance, tall and looming like a granite giant.

The signal gets stronger the closer he gets to the mountains and he's able to pinpoint Peter's location easily. The second the ship touches down, he's out the door and running toward the mountain ridge.

"Quill! You better answer me, boy!" Yondu's threats are lost in the roar of the wind that cuts across the face of the mountain. The wind delivers a lacerating blow with each gust, the snow and ice that gets kicked up each time making it hard to see. It's bitterly cold and the thought that Peter had been stuck in this for hours settles hard and heavy in the Ravager captain's gut.

He glances down at the communicator in his hand, the signal leading him to a small fissure between two sheer outcroppings of rock. The space small and cramped but it's at least somewhat protected from the wind. That's where he finds Peter.

The boy is huddled against the wall with his knees pulled to his chest. His arms are wrapped loosely around his legs and his chin is resting against his knees. A thin scarf has been wrapped across his mouth and nose, likely in a vain attempt to preserve some kind of body heat. He looks impossibly pale in the dull, grey light filtering into the fissure, and it looks like he could be sleeping if it weren't for the deep purple bruises forming beneath his closed eyes.

"Quill!" Yondu shouts, squeezing into the small space between the rocks and dropping to his knees in front of Peter's huddled form. "Come on, brat, it's time to go. We gotta get you outta here."

Peter doesn't stir, the frost forming on his eyelashes giving him an unnatural appearance. His skin looks too waxy, too pale to be real, like the real Peter Quill had been swapped out with a mannequin. He looks dead.

"No, no, no," Yondu mutters, refusing to even entertain that as a possibility. "Quill, you open yer eyes right this damn second, ya hear me?! Open yer eyes, Peter!"

He reaches out and tears the scarf away from Peter's face, frowning when he sees the alarming blue tinge to the boy's lips. He pats his cheek sharply, ignoring the cold, rigid texture of his skin. "Come on, brat," Yondu mumbles, doing an admirable job of keeping the fear from creeping into his voice when he speaks.

It doesn't work, Peter remains cold and unresponsive to his efforts. "Boy, I will kick yer ass back to life, so help me…" the Ravager captain growls to himself, reaching down and pressing his fingers into the cold skin beneath Peter's jaw. He feels nothing at first, just the cold, stiff texture of Peter's skin, and a muscle in his jaw tightens. He moves his fingers just slightly to left and presses down again, hard. It takes several seconds, much longer than he's comfortable with, but eventually Yondu feels the slow, shallow thud of a pulse against his fingertips.

"Atta boy," he mutters quietly, exhaling a huge breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. His relief is short-lived though because even though Peter is alive (barely) right now, he may not be for much longer if he doesn't get warmed up. He needs to get him back to the ship, now, otherwise all of this will have been for nothing.

It takes a lot of maneuvering between the cramped space of the fissure and trying not to jostle Peter more than absolutely necessary but after a few minutes Yondu able to successfully get Peter hoisted over his shoulder. The teen is deadweight against him, hanging heavy and limp over the curve of his shoulder, but Yondu can feel the shallow rise and fall of his chest against his back and that's all the reassurance he needs for the time being.

Getting back to the ship is another story entirely. The ground is icy and slippery with just one person trying to navigate their way across it, let alone one person carrying the weight of another. There are several near misses, times where Yondu doesn't quite plant his foot as solidly as he needs to and nearly sends them both toppling over, but eventually they make it back to the ship just as another heavy burst of snow begins doing its dead-level best to bury the mountain and everything around it.

OOOOO

Peter awakens in agony. His skin is burning from the inside out, stinging with lingering cold and smoldering as it warms slowly. He's shivering badly, shaking and trembling so hard the floor beneath him feels like it's vibrating. His teeth are clenched together tightly to suppress their chattering, the muscles in his jaws twitching and quivering from the effort. It feels like the world is made of layers of ice that are slowly and painfully being dismantled with white-hot flames.

His arms and legs jerk involuntarily, his muscles contracting in sharp, painful spasms. For a brief, confusing moment, he wonders if he's having a seizure, the convulsive tremors deep and uncontrollable. He thinks he's sweating but everything feels cold, like the perspiration on his skin is formed from ice crystals and frost. His breath is too hot in his lungs, the air too cold around him, and it feels like he's suffocating in a sauna that doubles as a freezer.

Through the haze of pain and confusion, he realizes he's no longer in the cave on Tryph but on the floor of a ship. He's laid out on the floor on some kind of pallet and there's something heavy and thick wrapped around him, a cocoon of fabric and cloth. He struggles against it weakly, his limbs heavy and unresponsive as he pushes and pulls against the material. It takes much more energy than he has and his useless pawing is getting him nowhere. He finally manages to pull an arm free from his bindings but the sudden exposure makes him gasp in pain. The dichotomy of hot and cold makes his skin feel like it's been shredded and laid open with a razorblade, burning in a way he's never known.

"Quit strugglin', brat," a voice commands from somewhere up above him and someone grabs his arm and gently guides it back under the pile of fabric wrapped around him. Peter can't make sense of it, his thoughts still slow and muddled, but he recognizes the blue hand wrapped around his arm and follows it up to the equally blue face of his captain.

"Where-?" he starts but his teeth begin chattering the second he stops clenching his jaw and it's hard to form any kind of coherent sentence after that.

"The engine room," Yondu informs him, dropping back down to sit on the floor next to him. "It was the warmest place on the ship so I brought ya down here."

Peter frowns, still trying to make sense of where he is and what happened. He remembers Tryph and the snow and the ice but his memory gets a little shoddy toward the end. There was wind and a cave and then nothing. He tries to remember, he really does, but his memories dead end about there.

It takes him a few seconds to realize he's covered in about five layers of fabric, an accumulation of sheets, cloth tarps, and anything else that could be used as a blanket. He doesn't know where it all came from but it's heavy and thick and he feels like it's pinning him to the floor.

His arm twitches again and he curls against it, groaning quietly against the floor. It's like a cramp and a spasm tangled together into one deep ache and he feels it all the way down to his bones. He mutters a curse as another spasm works its way through him, his muscles going tense and rigid as it seizes him.

"Hate to break it to ya, kid, but yer gonna be feelin' that for the next couple'a hours," Yondu tells him, leaning back against the wall and stretching his legs out in front of him.

Peter groans again as the pain subsides just enough for him to breathe. "This sucks," he grumbles, his words muffled and quiet beneath the layers of cloth on top of him.

"Yeah, well that's what happens when ya go out an' get yerself damn near frozen solid on an ice planet," the Ravager captain counters, the words coming out clipped and short. "Yer damn lucky I found ya when I did, boy. If I had gotten there a few minutes later…" the words fade off into nothing but the implication is clear; the cave Peter had been huddled up in very nearly became his grave.

He lets out a slow sigh and feels some of the tension in his shoulders bleed away with it. "Sorry," he mumbles, suppressing another shiver that works its way through him.

"Ya should be," Yondu retorts but there's no heat in his voice. If anything there's an undercurrent of something Peter doesn't quite recognize; his thoughts are still fuzzy and muddled but it sounds an awful lot like relief. "Scramblin' across the cosmos to haul your half-frozen ass out of a cave wasn't exactly a picnic."

The comment is probably supposed to come across as flippant and nonchalant but there's a palpable stiffness to the words that makes it clear that Yondu doesn't enjoy saying them out loud. He would never say it out loud but the sight of Peter nearly frozen to death in that cave had shaken him more than he cared to admit.

"We got a couple more hours before we get back to the ship," he continues, nodding in what Peter assumes is the direction of the ship in question. "Should give you plenty'a time to warm up between now an' then."

Peter tries to move again but a sharp, crimson glare makes him stop and reconsider his decision. "That said, I'm gonna go back up an' pilot this ship to make sure we get back in one piece. You are gonna stay down here an' thaw out 'til you don't resemble a corpse anymore. An' if I catch you up an' about even a second before that happens then yer cleanin' the trash shoot for a month, got it?"

"Got it," Peter replies with a small nod, going still under the pile of cloth again. The trash shoot threat is a good enough deterrent but he also just doesn't have the energy to move even if he wanted to. Who knew coming back from being half-dead took so much out of you…

"Good," Yondu mumbles with a small nod of his own. He stands slowly and steps around the pallet, careful to avoid stepping on Peter in the process. He pauses before he reaches the door, considers something internally, and then works his coat off and lays it out over Peter. It's an oddly tender gesture that is immediately dismissed as the Ravager captain turns abruptly and makes his way back to the door.

"Stay put, runt," he calls over his shoulder as he leaves, the door sliding closed behind him a second later. The sound of his boots thudding up the stairs echos for a few seconds before it fades away and Peter is left alone in the engine room.

He sighs and shifts slightly to find a marginally more comfortable position. Everything still hurts and he still feels like he's freezing and boiling at the same time but exhaustion is beginning to take its hold over him and he feels himself beginning to slip away again.

He fumbles one hand out of the pile of fabric on top of him and hooks his finger in the sleeve of the jacket. It takes a lot of effort and a lot more energy than he has left but he manages to tug it down onto the floor beside him. The coat ends up in a wadded mess next to him, half on the floor and half still on top of Peter and that little bit of effort expends the very last of his energy.

He tangles his fingers in the sleeve and rests his cheek against the well worn leather, settling into it like a makeshift pillow. The coat is tattered from years of wear and abuse and the leather smells like a combination of gun oil and smoke but it's a familiar scent that helps ease some of his discomfort. It drives away the shivers that still wrack their way through him, slowly but surely leaching away the bone-deep cold and replacing it with a slow, gentle warmth.

The coat reminds him of a thick, well-worn sweater his mother had when he was a child. It was about four sizes too big for both of them but that sweater was always the first thing to come out when the seasons changed and the temperature dropped. His mother would slip the sweater over her head, the hem reaching well past her knees, and then she'd scoop Peter up and tuck him into it with her like a raggedy kangaroo pouch. Peter would laugh because with both of their heads sticking out to the neckhole they looked like a two-headed monster and his mother would indulge him by stomping around the house making monster noises while Peter laughed and giggled until he couldn't breathe.

He misses that sweater because as silly as it was, it smelled like his mother and it smelled like home. Peter hasn't had a home in a long time but the tattered red coat against his cheek is close so he holds it closer. Peter keeps his fingers wrapped around the sleeve, closes his eyes, and feels warm for the first time in what feels like days.

Thank for reading guys!

Happy early Halloween!