Cosmo had long-since come to terms with the cold. It was the one true constant in her life. The Motherland had been cold, the people that had stuffed her into a spacecraft with no hope of return had been cold, and now the cell she shared with an empty bed was cold.
That was to be expected at least, Bibroaclite was a hardened lump of ice and snow at the center of a gas giant. The pounding of hailstorms and the howling of a dozen twisters hounded the prison like a pack of wolves. Sometimes, on especially bad nights, the wind got inside; it was not uncommon to find the frozen corpses of your fellow prisoners staring at you through the bars of their cages the morning after.
Still, Cosmo couldn't complain. She had food and water, and fur thick enough to handle the occasional chill. Three meals a day was more warmth than she was used to.
The distant hiss of an opening door, and the stomping of heavy boots allerted Cosmo to the presence of guards. Breakfast was not due for another few hours by her calculations, but Cosmo wasn't complaining. She stood up and stretched, holding back a yawn born of boredom. A shift in the timetable would probably stave off monotony.
It soon became apparent to her that the guards were here for another reason altogether- Bibroaclite had a new prisoner. And they were rude.
"Really digging the whole 'lack of hygiene' vibe you've got going here, sir. Was the aesthetic inspired by your face, or was it the other way round?"
There was an audible 'smack' and Cosmo found herself wincing. In some ways, the guards were the coldest part of Bibroaclite. They were hulking creatures wearing advanced body armour with not even an inch of skin showing. They never removed their helmets, and moved with a mechanical precision that was the envy of actual robots. They rarely spoke with more than their fists. Cosmo herself had never been beaten, but she'd seen the bruises on other prisoners.
This new one seemed determined to earn himself a dozen before he even reached his cell.
"C'mon man, that was a serious question!"
Smack!
"Okay, okay, you're right. I shouldn't have asked. Obviously it's inspired by you."
Smack!
The bars swung open and Cosmo watched as a small, fur-covered thing was hurled into her cell with extreme prejudice.
"Enjoy your new chew toy, mutt," grunted the guard, slamming the door shut again and wasting no time in storming off. Hope the damn dog kills him.
Cosmo cocked her head to the side, not at all used to seeing this much emotion from Bibroaclite's enforcers. She turned to the rude thing that was now her cellmate, and was surprised to see that it had already gotten to it's feet.
It had fur, though nowhere near as thick or clean a coat as her own. It was a lot more colourful though, brown all over with a lighter muzzle, and darker shades banding around it's tail and forming a kind of mask over it's face.
"What do you mean chew toy?" It's eyes found Cosmo and widened in horror- betraying fear just as clearly as their thoughts did. Oh crap! "Hey! I-I was supposed to be incarcerated not-" Torn apart. It swallowed audibly, and held out a pair of placating paws. "Good dog. Nice dog. Er- don't bite me. I'm not actually for chewin'. Gooood dog, just don't-"
Cosmo's tail began to wag uncontrollably. "You really think I'm a good dog?"
The thing blinked and in an instant the fear turned to confusion. "Huh?"
"Oh I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself," she sat down and raised a paw in imitation of the salute she was familiar with. "I am Cosmo! Cosmonaut hailing from Motherland. And you are?"
"How are you doing that?"
"Doing what?"
"I can hear you talking," he held up a hand and flapped it open and closed. "But your mouth ain't movin'."
"Well I am not actually talking talking- I am telekinetically projecting words into your mind!"
It frowned. Right, coz that makes so much sense.
"You never heard of telepathy?"
Is this thing reading my mind? It gave her a curious sniff. "Are you-"
"Well, is not exactly like reading, but da."
The thing that Cosmo decided was some kind of alien rodent grumbled at that, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling at her. This is gonna make things harder. Locked up with a mindreader, how am I supposed to get out of here with her probing my every-
"You… know I can still hear you, right?"
Well this sucks. The thing sighed and seeing he was no longer in immediate danger, turned his attention to the bars sealing them inside. "So what are you like, a guard dog or something?"
"Nyet! I am prisoner here, like you!"
The rodent snorted at that and scratched at an ear. "If you were anything like me you'd already be outta here."
"I could probably escape if I could get this off," Cosmo indicated the lump that hung from her collar like a giant, mechanical tick. "Telekinetic suppressor. If I try to move object, I am electrocuted."
Good to know. "See if you were really like me you'd have already gotten it off." Frickin' amateur.
Cosmo frowned but chose to ignore his thoughts. "You never answered my question."
"The name's Rocket," he said, turning back to face her. "And just so you know, I'm busting outta here sooner or later. At some point you'll probably see me tinkering or tampering with something. If that happens, keep your mouth shut and your words to yourself, got it?"
The labrador considered this. "And in return you'll remove Cosmo's suppressor?"
The sour look on his face indicated that he hadn't anticipated having to do anything in return for her silence. Rocket had a moment of internal debate Cosmo chose not to be privy to, before finally shrugging. "Sure, fine, I'll get the bugs off you."
"Then we have deal!" Her tail a whirlwind of joy, Cosmo padded over to where he stood and thanked him the only way she knew how- by repeatedly licking his face.
With her powers back, she could break free of Bibroaclite's hold, steal a ball and find some far off isolated (preferably warm) planet to play fetch in! Or maybe join a wolf pack! Or do literally anything other than freezing!
The raccoon was standing in stunned disbelief and Cosmo could feel his mind abuzz with confusion. What the flark? "What are you doing?"
"Thanking you?" she had thought that much to be obvious.
A moment later he was swearing relentlessly and wiping so desperately at his fur one would think she had sprayed him with acid. "Well knock it off!"
Cosmo cocked her head to the side. "Why?"
"It's frickin' slobber, what do you mean why? It's disgusting! How'd you like it if I started licking you?"
She was not quite capable of shrugging the way bipeds did, but Cosmo gave her best impression. "I probably wouldn't mind? It's normal for dogs."
Rocket balked at her before rolling his eyes and turning his full attention back to grooming his face. "I'm gonna ignore that." Stupid mutt thinks I'm a dog.
"I do not!" Cosmo protested. Her cellmate scowled, still not used to having his every thought looked at. "And I'm not stupid either. You are clearly mutated rodent. But just because you are different does not mean we cannot be comrades."
"I'm not a rodent!"
"There is no need to live in denial. I do not discriminate," Cosmo went on earnestly. "In space, we are all comrades!"
The raccoon frowned. This is gonna be a humongous pain in the ass…
"Fine, Cosmo promises no more face licking."
"Good!"
"Could I sniff your rear?"
Rocket stared at her with a mix of horror and confusion. "What!?"
"What!?" echoed Quill, wearing the same expression. "You just asked him that!?"
"Quill, you of all people should know how important consent is."
"Drax, please don't make this weird!"
"Normally I don't ask!" Cosmo whined. "It's instinct, okay? I didn't see another dog for long time and then come along something that is clearly not dog but reminds Cosmo of dog but isn't dog and does not like being licked. So I asked, okay? Is not important detail and Cosmo thinks you are all being a bit too hung up on it! Can I get back to story now?"
The guard was rather disappointed when instead of finding bits of chewed up raccoon all over the cell, he found the loudmouth prisoner rubbing the dog's belly and looking all sorts of disgruntled. Sign up for Bibroaclite, they said. You're making the galaxy a safer place, they said. Turns out you're freezing your balls off to guard a freakshow.
"Breakfast time rats," the guard grumbled, sliding the cell door open.
Rocket grinned, his mind flaring up with a dozen insults, each one more cutting than the last. Before he could give voice to them Cosmo bowled into him, knocking the raccoon to the ground.
"Hey! What's the matter with-"
Rocket was abruptly cut short by Cosmo's rear dropping on his head.
"I know the way!" she told the guard, smiling innocently while the raccoon's muffled growling promised a painful and violent end.
"I am Groot!"
"I was saving his life!" Cosmo protested. "If they didn't like you on Bibroaclite all they had to do was lock you in one of the outer cells and keep the door open at night. If it wasn't for me Rocket would have been ice cream not Guardian!"
"I'm guessing he wasn't too keen on that explanation?" Gamora asked from behind her hand. She was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that question.
"You sat on me!" Rocket snapped as he stormed ahead of Cosmo in the general direction of the messhall. "That's not saving anything! You humiliated me in front of the asshole I'm supposed to be intimidating!"
"You can't intimidate anyone if you are frozen popsicle! And you're heading towards shower room."
Rocket readjusted his stride with a bad-tempered snarl. "Look dog, I've been to prisons before. High security this, high security that they're all the frickin' same. Lazy guards. Bored bald bodies. Piss them off and they don't notice you've nabbed their stuff until it's too late. Don't know what that first guy's problem was, normally they don't get mad that fast."
Cosmo gave him a skeptical side-eye. "So you just antagonise everyone?"
"Pretty much," he said with a note of pride. "First rule of prison, mutt. You wanna get picked on, you let the big guy roll over you. You wanna be left alone, you gotta make sure everyone knows what you're capable of." The doors hissed open to reveal the messhall- easily the warmest part of the prison and full to the brim with rowdy inmates. "So which of these assholes do I have to beat the crap out of to earn some peace and quiet?"
The labrador raised an eyebrow. "I'm not really sure your philosophy-"
His temper flared up again. "You think I can't do it?"
The spacedog sighed, and did her best to approach the situation delicately. "You are, how you say, malenki-"
"I'm gonna pretend that word didn't translate," Rocket snatched a tray and joined the lunch line.
"And I overpowered you relatively easily-"
The rodent snorted, and hopped onto the stand so the lunch lady could see and by extension, serve him. "If you've got a reputation worth dragging through the dirt I wouldn't mind kicking your ass, but frankly Cosmo I don't think you're worth my time."
He made his way over to a crowded table, gave everyone present a glare, then patted the seat next to him.
Cosmo sat down besides him, and between them they took up about as much space as the average prisoner.
"Fine then, you'll want Zafersly and Bigby. If it weren't for suppressor I would have dropped ceiling on them by now."
Rocket nearly choked on his carton of milk, and followed her gaze to where it fell upon a pile of sentient rocks and an overgrown bug. "Those idiots?"
His mind flared up again, but instead of a single thought, Cosmo was presented with a memory.
Rocket was smaller, if that was even possible, and Cosmo was shocked to see metal protrusions sticking out of him. Gone was his confident stride, gone was his snarl, and in their place was a shaking Cosmo generally associated with the worst of winter nights. He was too small to reach the table, so placed the oversized tray of prison slops on the bench in order to free his paws up for climbing.
Before he could even start, the rear end of a hulking Kronan descended on his food, splattering Rocket's face with sticky clumps of prison gruel.
"The flark? What the-" Bigby stood up and found their bright green prison suit stained a horrible red. They turned their glare towards the miniscule Rocket. "You think you're funny, do you?"
Rocket had no reply at the ready for that. His stomach grumbled emptily. His food, the only decent thing about being a prisoner of the Nova Corps, was ruined. The next thing he knew Zafersly's boot slammed into his back, sending him sprawling.
"Oi! Is the rat messing with you too, Bigby?"
"Dumped it's food on my seat," the rock monster grumbled.
"Nasty little bloodsucker," Zafersly shook his head in disapproval and gave Rocket another kick. "It's me new cellmate, couldn't sleep last night from all it's crying. Kept whining about some Lyller fellow."
"I'm sorry," Rocket whimpered, doing his best to push himself to his feet. "I was just- I was hungry-"
"Oh, you hear that Bigby?" there was cruel glint in Zafersly's eye. "He was just hungry."
"Only hungry," the kronan agreed, with a wicked smile. "Well then, eat up rat." He picked up what was left of the slop and dumped it over the tiny creature's head.
Zafersly laughed. Bibgby laughed. The prisoners laughed. Even some of the guards laughed.
It was Rocket's own laughter that pulled Cosmo back into reality. "Man, this is gonna be easy! Here, guard my stuff."
"You know them?" Cosmo asked, doing her best to sound casual- as if she hadn't just seen far more than she'd intended to.
"You could say that," Rocket smirked. "I know they're assholes and I know they think they're tough." His thoughts were more jumbled now. Tray. Fire hydrant. Speakers. Sound system. Radio. "This is gonna be good."
The rodent vanished into the general hubbub and though Cosmo tried to keep track of his movements he proved too fast and too adept at slipping by without people noticing.
A short while later there was a sudden ringing and the prison's speaker system came to life.
"Testing, testing, one, two, three," came Rocket's voice, and Cosmo found the raccoon standing in between a prone guard and a fire hydrant, a radio in his paws. "May I have your attention please!" He noticed Cosmo staring and winked with the wrong eye. "I'd like to file a complaint to the prison warden. I was told that Bibroaclite was a high security prison, housing some of the Galaxy's finest degenerates. We're supposed to be the scum of this sector, y'know? Talk about false advertising! I mean we've got the likes of Slazerby and Bigby here for flark's sake."
"Oi! You got a problem, rat?" demanded Zafersly, as besides him Bigby's eyes narrowed in recognition.
Rocket sighed forlornly. "Guess they'll let anyone in nowadays."
"You're one to chat-"
"Your greatest accomplishment is beating up an ex, Bigby. And you needed Slazerfly's help for that and you still got your asses handed to you. For those wondering, I bust these idiots outta prison a few years back, y'know? I reckon it took 'em all of five seconds to get caught again. Which is still probably longer than they're used to lasting."
Cosmo did not get the joke, but Rocket grinned pointedly as the vast majority of Bibroaclite's prison population howled and hooted in approval.
The raccoon held up a paw to placate the aliens. "No needs to come up with a clever retort, it might give you an aneurysm."
"You're dead," snarled Zafersly who, along with Cosmo, was one of the few inmates who knew what an aneurysm was. They made to charge forwards… and promptly fell on their face- someone small having previously tied their shoelaces together.
The crowd burst into laughter and cleared the way for a charging Bigby to throw himself at the raccoon. Rocket stood his ground, let the Kronan get close- before finally pulling off the safety pin of the fire hydrant he must have adjusted and letting it rocket towards the pile of sentient rocks. It made contact with Bigby's shocked face and promptly exploded, knocking the hulking brute over to general applause. Nothing staved off monotony like a prison fight.
Zafersly, who by now had managed to get out of his boots, was instantly taken out by a tray to the face.
"That's all folks," said Rocket, giving the hubbub an exaggerated little bow and tossing the radio over his shoulder.
"That was incredible!" Cosmo cheered a short while later as the raccoon appeared besides her.
"That was nothin'," Rocket shrugged, but he failed to hide a proud little smirk. "Besides, they had it coming."
His mind flared up again and Cosmo could not help stealing a glance.
The younger Rocket stood on a table in a brightly lit bar in the kind of establishment most folk stayed well away from. He was holding a bottle over his head that was nearly as big as he was, and seemed determined to chug the whole thing.
"Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat! Rat!" cheered the crowd of aliens that encircled him. Cosmo recognized Zafersly and Bigby, and guessed from the identical green jumpsuits they were all wearing that Rocket had initiated a mass breakout.
With some difficulty, the rodent managed to swallow the last few drops of liquor. He set the bottle down with an awkward stumble, fell on his rump and gave a particularly spectacular burp that was the pride and joy of the creatures surrounding him.
"WOOO! Attaboy!" cried Bigby, slapping him hard on the back.
"Another round!" demanded Zafersly, shoving a second bottle into the raccoon's tiny paws.
Rocket swallowed audibly, but his mind was abuzz with drunken delight. His throat burned and his stomach felt horribly bloated, but it was still the best he'd felt in a long time. It really was good to have friends…
A few hours later, the party had ended and Rocket was desperately stumbling about in an effort to catch up to his new friends. At first he'd thought that Zafersly and Bigby made Theel look like the patron saint of kindness and generosity, but they had warmed up to him over the course of their prison break. They had grown familiar, and familiarity was comforting.
Rocket turned into an alley and found the pair leaning against a wall, inhaling smoke through a roll of some kind of plant.
"Ugh! The rat followed us," Zafersly groaned, flicking the cigarette in Rocket's general direction.
"Get lost," snapped Bigby, with none of the cheerfulness the rodent had expected from him. "We don't need a pet."
Rocket blinked, stunned by the abrupt change in tone. A few hours ago they had been cheering him on and handing him drinks. "B-but I thought we were friends?"
The bug and the rock shared a look, then turned back to Rocket and burst into laughter. "Oh! That's good! That's too good!"
"Why would we wanna be friends with a freak like you?"
"Friends! Next thing it'll say is we're family!"
"Do yourself a favour creep, and crawl into some gutter."
Rocket stood there, tears slowly trailing down his face as the pair turned their backs to him and resumed their own friendship. The rejection hurt, but the pain was his own fault. He should have known better.
He didn't have friends.
"Hey, Cosmo, hello, dooog, dog!" Cosmo snapped back to reality and found her cellmate snapping his fingers in front of her face. He pointed at the untouched carton of milk on her lunch tray. "You gonna have that or can I?"
Footnote: The shortest chapter of the story so far and also the one that took the longest to write. I'm fairly sure I've said before that I wanted this fanfic to be many things, and that's mostly because I had many ideas for Guardians fics to write and I have messily combined them into one superfic. So originally I had the idea for a prison fic starring the younger Rocket who has just escaped the HE, but I didn't have all that many ideas for it beyond a few scenes... which were turned into what you just read. Rocket is picked on. Rocket orchestrates mass jailbreak. Rocket is cheered on. And then Rocket is rejected by his new 'friends'. A fun concept I'm sure, but not necessarily one I had to drag out into a whole fic (plus this way we also got to see Rocket get his 'revenge' on the er- bastardised version of Korg and Meeks that is Bigby and Zafersly.
This kind of formatting does inevitably lead to some issues with pacing and I do hope I don't end up dragging things out with this and the Mission Report arc buuuut I will say it's probably an inevitability when your story has about ten or twelve major characters.
Next week, Dog Days Part II which means, more memories inside memories and a prison break.