A/N: *hides my face because why on earth do I love whumping characters* Wow okay dear people, I love you. Y'all are awesome and I will totes continue this!
1.) MockingjayGwenStacy, meep yes I love you! Can we be friends please? Oh, I will def continue! Thank you! I was hoping I'd keep them in character. It's my first time, so that means a lot. :)
AwkwardBabyGiraffe, unfortunately, yeah. Poor Peter is in for it :( (I always put my characters through some sort of hell, but there'll be a lot of comfort to compensate for all the hurt) That "What's left of him" was more to describe the state they found him in, though. But yeah, Peter won't like me very much. ;_;
Zinfer, ahhh thank you! Yes, I plan on continuing. I'll update as long as I've got ideas (which I do). As for hurt/comfort. That's my niche, I think. Next chapter will be some comfort for our dear Guardians, that's the plan. But yeah, there'll be h/c for sure. ^^
2.) More Peter!whump and Gater in this chapter. Yes, I'm calling them Gater because hells yeah I like that shipname. Or Starmora.
3.) This one is super duper angsty. I promise, next chapter will be comfort. Warning: descriptive mentions of gore and very sad Peter.
P.s. Rocket is hard for me :s. I'm trying to get that badass, look-at-the-raccoon-he-don't-care vibe, but it comes across as him just being mean. Am I doing okay with him? As always, do be lovely and leave a review please?
She whips around, her pink-tinged tresses flying with the turn of her head. In a few strides, she crosses the distance between herself and Drax, watching with wide eyes the man in Drax's arms. His face is covered in burns and scratches, and those bright green eyes always gleaming with mischief are closed. His brows are furrowed slightly., and a deep cut across his hairline is bleeding. The trickle of it runs down his left temple. His clothes are scorched and torn in various places.
"You may set him down gently, Drax," Gamora whispers, folding her legs beneath her as she settles into a cross-legged position. Drax dips his head in a nod and crouching down, lays him down so that his head is resting in her lap. Gamora reaches down and hooking her arms under his shoulders, pulls him up so as to hold him in her arms. His head lolls against her chest. She brushes the hair back from his forehead, careful to avoid the gash.
"You have been a fool, Peter Quill," she says to him, looking him over for any other visible injuries. "I do not approve of this and will make sure you atone for such actions when you are fully awake. You are not allowed to die. I forbid you." She absently strokes his curls as she speaks, not caring if he heard her or not.
The lights are fading now and if his eyes are open (honestly he can't tell; that's how dark it is), he sees nothing but darkness. Not beautiful, star-speckled darkness; but cold, depthless, lonely darkness. He definitely feels the cold and shudders on instinct, reminded uncomfortably of the feeling of ice crawling over his skin after he'd saved Gamora by risking his own life in the process.
Gamora. Pain flares in his chest at the thought of her. He tries to chase it away, but it slithers under his skin like an itch he can't scratch. He swallows, forcing the discomfort down. (Is it possible to swallow in limbo? He marks that up as one of the stupidest questions he could possible ask in his situation.) That's the moment he begins to distinctly wonder where he is. Where it could be so impossibly dark and cold. Aside from dying, which I adamantly refuse to do, he thinks to himself. Something grips his heart then, sinking icy claws into his core at the thought of death, and he decides he doesn't like it. The sensation creeps into him, raises the hairs on the back of his neck. He gulps, and if his pride weren't so damned stubborn, he might have admitted that the thought of dying was terrifying. He pushes the thought away. Rocket'd call him a coward, he thinks. The raccoon would spit something along the lines of dying being something to write down in a history book. Peter tries to imagine it: Star Lord, saviour of the galaxy with his brilliant plan to distract the Accuser with a dance-off. He, the Terran who found himself afraid of death.
It's when the light fades that his heart begins to stutter.
(The beats are fewer now. He can barely hear his own heartbeat.) His heart is slowing down, and for once he doesn't blame it. It's tired just as much as he is, and he honestly doesn't think he can take much more. It's a selfish thought, so he thinks, but wherever he is-it seems as if the odds were increasingly against him.
In the time that follows, he feels nothing but the cold and the silence. That is until the moment (just one moment) he hears another heartbeat beside his own. It thrums softly in his ears-her heart thrums softly in his ears. Though he can barely hear his own, the sound of hers lulls him; the steady, quiet rhythm soothes him and lulls him to sleep he isn't sure he'll wake from.
"I do not think he is breathing," Drax comments, from his seat on what's left of an engine. "It does not look like it." Gamora leans her head down and turns her ear to Peter's chest, closing her eyes as she listened for a heartbeat. At first, she is met with silence, terrifying silence. Relief comes soon enough when she catches first one, then another. The beats of his heart are few and far between, faint almost nonexistent. She sits back up and meets Drax's gaze.
"He is not dead," she remarks softly. "Not yet." She still holds the injured Terran close. She reaches down to pull his coat closer over him (because if she feels the chill of their surroundings than he must as well) when her fingers brush wetness. Puzzled, she folds the leather back and pushes it out of her way, running her hand as gently as possible along his torn and tattered torso. Her fingers find the damp spot-there's a dark splotch just above his hip. With her other hand, she lifts the hem of his shirt just enough to examine the wound. Her heart drops to her boots at what she finds. Nestled in the curve of his pelvis, just beneath his stomach, is a piece of shrapnel at least a foot long. Her own stomach upturns at the sight, and she isn't sure if she wants to cry or scream or both.
"He might as well be," Rocket comments, then adds quickly, "Gamora, I don't mean it that way" to her angry expression. "I mean that if the explosion didn't, this will. Humie's lucky we happen to be on Xandar." Gamora turns back to the man in her arms and closes her eyes-the best she can do to hide the tears forming in her ears. She is Gamora. She does not cry. Peter Quill, it seems has upturned every thing that makes me me, she thinks to herself.
"We must find medical attention for him, then," she says hoarsely. "He is not allowed to die. Not now." I forbade you, Quill, she thinks as she gazes at the shadow of the "legendary outlaw" calling himself Star Lord.
A/N: Thoughts? Whatever's on your mind, tell me in a review?
P.s. Don't worry, I am not going to kill Peter. How can I? I'm in love with the guy okay.