Chapter Text
It’s the flowers that drew you in.
Cindelia is a planet of limited resources - which seems to be kind of what happens when you liberate yourself from imperialists. The Shi’ar had blocked trade to this little red-wreathed pearl in the sky, and the result is that Cindelians have limited access to the goods and services funneled across space and time by their intergalactic neighbors.
They’ve become remarkably self-sufficient, though.
We’ve become remarkably self-sufficient, you correct yourself. Sure, some part of you will always be Terran, but you’ve come to accept that there’s little hope of getting back home. And frankly, things hadn’t been looking too hot there when you’d gotten scooped up by Sakaaran slavers heading to Hala, so maybe it’s all for the best. As far as you’re concerned, all you’ve left behind is a mountain of crippling student loan debt and medical bills.
And lattes. You do kinda miss lattes.
But you’d only been a little traumatized by your abduction and subsequent deliverance - comparatively speaking. The Sakaarans had kept you and the handful of other prisoners in cryo for the series of cycles it had taken to reach this part of the galaxy, not wanting to deal with the cries, rebellions, and various needs of awake and active captives. Then, like the idiots you’ve since gathered they were, they’d crept too close to the Shi’ar empire and had been fired upon. The Sakaaran slavers had panic-crashed on Cindelia, knowing only that it wasn’t a Shi’ar stronghold.
What they hadn’t realized was that Cindelia is a haven planet. Its history with the Shi’ar had anchored its culture in revolution and freedom-fighting. Once the locals had realized that the Sakaarans were trafficking sentient lifeforms, your captors hadn’t been long for the living. You remember being scooped, and you remember being woken - terrified, yes, and panicked, absolutely.
But cared for.
Helped.
And Cindelia is a beautiful planet. It’s braceleted by low-lying shield volcanoes with steady, quiet ribbons of lava that illuminate the mountainsides at night. The few volcanoes that do erupt violently are predictable - manageable - and have kept the stratosphere so heavy with fine ash that the daytime sky almost always hangs lilac and lavender over a gold horizon.
As lovely as it is, it makes growing food a finicky business. There isn’t much access to sunlight because of the ash, which also means that a good portion of the planet is too cold for long growing seasons. Prior to their uprising, Cindelia had been economically healthy due to its mineral exports: volcanic veins rich in nickel, lead, zinc, gold. Bright copper and lightweight aluminum. Diamonds, topaz, moonstone; pink rubies and yellow sapphires and some kind of glassy purple obsidian. Crystals and ores crop up out of the ground like mirrored cornstalks and kaleidoscopic wildflowers.
But people can’t eat rocks. Or at least, you haven’t yet met one who does. In this universe - rich with more kinds of lifeforms than you’ve ever imagined - maybe they exist after all.
But not on Cindelia.
Which is all to say that when the kids start showing up to morning stories with a wealth of tiny white flowers woven into their braids and garlanding their little shoulders and necks, or tucked into buttonholes and behind ears, you are flummoxed.
Like, seriously - what the fuck?
You catch one of the children with a light touch to the shoulder as they try to run past you into the tiny amphitheatre you’ve built beside your little cottage. “Xavyeri,” you greet them. “Where did you find these?” You gesture to the wreath of tiny, starlike blooms cradled in their dark curls.
Xavyeri blinks up at you, then looks at Erzil and Alyxa, both of whom are also sporting streamers of white-opal wildflowers. Alyxa claps both hands over her mouth and giggles, and Erzil looks down at the blossoms braceleting his wrist.
“Old Man Trow,” Xavyeri responds with the most mischievous grin you’ve ever seen on a six-year-old’s face.
The word trow clamors through your translator-chip: overlapping meanings, multiple words and phrases climbing up on top of each other, stacked like ancient stones. It sounds like an old word, from before the Shi’ar empire - maybe centuries prior to colonization. Your chip - which is admittedly not of super-high quality thanks to all the Shi’ar-enforced embargos - picks up on the word as something that used to mean promise, or maybe oath, or a trustworthy thing with deep roots.
Alyxa’s grinning now too, sparkly baby-eyes curved into crescents. “I am groot,” she tells you, and you blink, utterly nonplussed. That word isn’t in the translator at all.
“I am groot,” Erzil responds, and then all three of them are racing onward to the amphitheatre, with a chorus of I am groots trailing in their wake.
Welp. Morning storytime is never boring.
Your field of study has not been particularly useful out here in the far reaches of the galaxy - at least not in any direct sort of way, or not on this planet in particular. Sometimes you wish you’d studied to be a volcanologist, or an agriculturist, because then maybe you could help in some kind of material way. Not that the Cindelians seem to have any regrets about the skills you do bring to the table.
None at all, actually.
In fact, you’ve made a little bit of a name for yourself in this part of Cindelia. Accidentally, really. The community had made sure you were fed and clothed and implanted with one of the handful of precious translator-chips that had been smuggled onto the planet, and one of the local families had sheltered you after they’d woken you from your cryosleep. You’d wanted to pay it back however you could: you don’t have a wealth of like, useful outer space skills, but you certainly know how to clean a home, and you’re a quick learner besides. Childcare seems like a bit of a group effort here, and you can easily keep a watchful eye on kids. And one night - early in your new life on this planet - you’d helped stow your host-family’s children into bed. And you’d started telling them a story.
And now it’s, like. A whole thing.
Your thing.
There are some holovids on Cindelia, and the planet receives some limited transmissions. Music, dramas. But as far as you’ve gathered, none of the external sources of entertainment are as good or as clear or as plentiful as they’d been prior to the uprising, and the tech to view or listen to them isn’t in great shape. So a lot of Cindelian entertainment is live: local musicians, theatrical productions, and apparently… storytelling.
Which you are good at.
Your host-family’s kids had been entranced: wide-eyed until just before they’d fallen asleep. You’d barely made it to the halfway point of one of the little tales you’d been keeping in the back of your brain since you were a pre-teen.
And the adults had been charmed. Later that same night, at their playful urging, you’d shared another short little scene from a more complex story you’d started journaling years ago. You hadn’t gotten around to finishing the original, but the grown-ups had become invested. Like, immediately.
As a result, it had only taken a week and a half - a cycle, rather - to have been given an old datapad to record your writing, and a designated night in the local community hall: post-dinner-entertainment for all ages.
Within another handful of cycles, you’d been asked to share stories during two timeslots at the city-center amphitheater: one that’s still family-friendly, and the other that’s a little…adultier. It took you a while to get used to that, but you’d started with violence before getting a little more scandalous, and you’ve received such warm reviews that it hadn’t taken long to get over even that embarrassment.
Nowadays, you offer morning storytimes for the little ones too, and there are a few cycles every year that you - well, tour? - to a couple neighboring towns? It’s a good fucking life and as far as being marooned across the universe after a botched kidnapping goes, it’s certainly not the worst existence you could’ve dreamed up.
Who could’ve guessed that obsessively reading and dreaming up far too much fanfiction on Terra would gift you with more transferable life-skills than memorizing calc equations?
Fuck you, Dr Sanderson.
The kids circle up - four-deep in a crescent around you - and you perch on your boulder in the middle of the ring, and you tell your story for today. It’s an ongoing little saga: you’d recycled one of your favorite original characters from your preteen imagination - aged them down further and given them a couple friends. Added some time-travel, and something about feeling lonely - something about feeling found. Your words flicker out over an oxbow of big eyes and messy hair, and each one of these little bodies is bearing at least one perfect white star of silky, shimmery petals.
Afterward, the kids clutter around you in a little pond of hands and giggles. You check the water tank read-outs to make sure the neutralizer’s working and the acidity isn’t too high, then fill aluminum cups for everyone. Bazeele and Xeresi - currently chairing the excess food stores - had brought over dried yaro chips, sweet-pickled umbellifer root, and in-season pepper-berries for snacks this cycle. The children feast: crunching, laughing, quietly chattering. You close your eyes for just a moment, and you can almost convince yourself that you’re sitting beside a happily-bubbling brook.
“I am groot,” one of them says, and then they’re all giggling, and a new chorus starts up.
I am groot! I am groot!
You lean back against the water-tank and tug on the too-long sleeves of your woven, wooly tunic: something like a sweater, in shades of dove-gray woven with gold threads. A bemused, contented little smile curves the corner of your mouth like a sleeping kitten. “What does groot mean?” you ask them, waiting to be let in on the joke.
One of the older boys - Eudox, who usually shepherds the kids from location to location, especially when the lava flows are more intense - speaks up.
“It’s a name,” he says from the other side of the lake of children. “A newcomer. Just arrived this morning. He says his name is Groot, but the little ones call him Old Man Trow.”
“Oh,” you say, the pieces starting to click into place. “He brought flowers?”
Eudox’s eyes twinkle. “He made them.”
You blink. “I’m sorry?”
“He’s a tree,” Alyxa speaks up. She shifts her way to the front and passes along one of her flowers. You accept it reverently. Each petal is evenly-velveted with the tiniest little dewdrop-like structures: almost invisible to the eye. Some kind of plant-cell-thing, you’d guess. They create a sparkly sort of pearlescence: collecting whatever diffuse light echoes out of the lavender sky, drinking it in, and echoing it back.
“He also brought a - a friend,” Eudox adds. “Some kind of… “ He hesitates. “Uh, some kind of lifeform.”
You raise the flower to your face and breathe it in. It’s got a mountain-stream scent: sweet, but clean. Clear and bright.
“Are they staying?” you ask. People tend to only come to Cindelia on accident - or for refuge.
“I think so?” Eudox offers, and shrugs. “The, uh, the friend is kinda…” He trails off, wincing. “Groot’s nice though.”
“Has someone already offered them a roof?” you ask. Your curiosity is blossoming in the same moonstone-starshape as the flower pinned delicately in your fingertips.
You breathe it in again, and the feeling uncurls its petals inside you.
“I think everyone’s still figuring that out. If they plan on staying-staying, it would be best to lodge them somewhere already-built. Or near where they’ll be building.” He hesitates again, and drops his voice. “They have a functional ship.”
Your eyes flare wide and shoot up to meet the teenager’s gaze. Cindelia has functioning ships - but they’re rare, and treated like glass. Repair knowledge is taught to every community member, starting in childhood. Even you’ve picked up the basics in the few years since you arrived.
“Think one of them is a mechanic?” you ask hopefully. You know what it would mean to get more hands and minds into the engineering pool here. Someone who’s had a look at recent tech - maybe someone with ideas.
“I’d say it’s a long shot, but…” Eudox drops his voice again. The kids are still chattering, but you both know that their brains are steel-jawed traps at the worst-possible times. “But the ship is… weird. Unless tech has changed a lot since my Per landed, it’s almost definitely an original build.”
You whistle low. “Okay, okay,” you say, impressed. “Well, hey. If they want a new space, there’s plenty of unused ground over here. And I’m happy to take them in till something can be constructed for them. If they’ll fit in the cottage, anyway.”
Eudox grins. “You might want to meet ‘em before you say that. Groot’s pilot or captain or mechanic or - whatever - seems kind of… bitey.”
You blink again. “Bitey,” you echo flatly.
Alyxa speaks up again. Yep. These adorable little gremlins are absolutely soaking up everything the two of you are saying. “Rocket,” she provides. “He’s Old Man Trow’s little one.”
Eudox grimaces. “Please don’t call him little one to his face. He’s…. “ The older boy gropes for kid-appropriate words. “Cranky.”
“It’s what Old Man Trow calls him,” Xavyeri protests.
“If he told you his name is Rocket,” you suggest mildly, “maybe we should just call him Rocket.”
“You understand Groot?” Eudox is asking the kids, looking surprised. He catches your eye again. “It just sounds like he’s saying I am Groot, over and over. The, uh - Rocket said something about his vocal cords. We thought he was the only one who could understand Groot.”
“It was hard at first,” Xavyeri responds. “But then it got easy after a little bit.”
“What, after five minutes?” Eudox says incredulously. “You weren’t even around him that long.”
“He’s really nice though,” Alyxa cuts in. “Old Man Trow, I mean. And he says the little - “ She catches your eye now, too. “He says Rocket is grumpy but wouldn’t hurt us. He just yells because he hurts a lot. And he’s lonely.” She pauses, and then adds thoughtfully, “Like Old Lady Ixaka.”
The other kids nod.
“Don’t call him that either,” Eudox says. His face is an agony of concern.
“I mean,” you spread your hands wide. “I don’t know if a literal tree will fit in the cottage. But if they can, I’m still happy to let them stay while a new place gets built. I’ve handled worse things than crankiness. Besides,” you grin. “Gotta pay it forward.”
Eudox looks at you, then looks over the tiny sea of children. “Pretty sure you’re paying it forward every day,” he tells you blandly. “What you say to people in your stories… it’s important.”
You snort. It’s sweet. Maybe some days you even think it could be true - but you’re used to undercutting your own value, biting yourself down to snacksize before someone else can do it for you. “They’re just silly little things.” You brush away his raised eyebrow with a flicking gesture. “But I’m glad they entertain people. Maybe give folks an escape when they need it.” That’s certainly what had originally made you love telling them, anyway.
Eudox shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “You’re the worst,” he tells you matter-of-factly, but you can hear the familial affection in his voice.
“Seriously,” you say, shifting the topic to something more comfortable for yourself. “Bring them by, if they end up needing a place.”
“Groot might be a little tall,” Eudox admits, eyeing the cottage. “But honestly, I think the folks in town might be glad to not have to worry about, uh, finding a place for Rocket. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure, Little Brother,” you tell him, and smile.
You sniff the flower one more time - cold mountain air, you imagine, or honeysuckle glazed with clean ice - and reach out to hand it back to Alyxa.
“You can keep it,” the little girl says. “Old Man Trow will give me another as soon as I see him.”
The children self-organize. You wonder if Terran children would be able to do the same, if things had been different. If you’d all been taught differently. Three of the older kids collect up the aluminum cups and take them into your kitchen to wash them, and the rest wrap up the leftover snacks and clean up the little amphitheater. It’s not like they’re perfect: some things are left messy, and some of the kids drag their feet or bicker between themselves. They’re still kids, after all. But your job is just to tell them stories and keep them fed and watered for a few hours, and it’s so remarkably easy.
And fun.
After they’ve gone, you pick up whatever little debris they’ve left behind. You check the water tank again and add more neutralizer as it refills. You do all the minor little maintenance-things that your cottage needs - and it’s nice. The meadowbugs chime quietly in the short cushion of plush green grasses and blue mosses, and the violet-veiled glow of the sun arcs over you behind the ash. Little fuschia salamanders scurry from gold-veined rock to gold-veined rock, chirruping. You hang laundry, and weed and water your little garden of winter russets, tossing out the rough rubies and raw diamonds that rise to the surface with every thaw and rainfall. Spiders Georg, the orloni who lives under a little pile of rocks beneath your water tank and has been eating enough backyard creepy-crawlies to keep your home blessedly pest-free, comes out to watch you for a bit. You leave him a little offering of leftover yaro chip and berry, which you decide he looks very pleased about. He doesn’t leave until Proginoskes - a stray flerken who normally hangs out at the community hall during the day, but likes to sleep at the foot of your lofted bed a couple times every cycle - meanders around the little corner of the cottage.
“Seeya, Spiders,” you say mildly as he scurries into hiding. Proginoskes wanders up to you and supervises your gardening, tail winding nonchalantly around his feet like a ribbon. His mouth opens just wide enough for a tongue-like tentacle to lick his teeth.
“And hello to you, Progo,” you greet him.
Proginoskes stares at you with half-lidded eyes, then looks away.
“Oh stop it,” you tell him. “I’m blushing.” You offer him another discarded yaro chip, and he bats at it with a paw before deciding you bore him. He strolls toward the cottage.
You stand up: cracking your back, checking the water tank again, and following your adopted flerken around the edge of your little home.
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Neither Eudox nor any of the adult community-members show up that night with a tree or cranky other lifeform in tow. It’s almost disappointing. You make a little fire in your hearth and sit by the window and scroll through your datapad, trying to figure out what story you’ll tell tomorrow morning’s audience. You settle on a tale you’d started writing last spring: four siblings, separated. Lost. Trying to find each other in a fruitful garden.
You add a unicorn, just for fun. The kids really like unicorns for some reason. To be honest, you don’t even know what they picture when you try to describe it because they’ve never seen a fucking horse, but whatever they’re imagining, it must be awesome.
They always get so damn excited about the unicorns.
You sleep with Progo curled at your feet. When morning comes - slanting topaz shadows against your walls and spilling them across the floor - you rise languidly, sliding from the lifted bed with the light thud of your bare feet on the ground. You make your warm cider and toast with umbellifer root preserves, then cuddle up in an oversized, worn wooly sweater made of soft dusty mauves. You’re just stepping out into the frosted grass and moss as the children start to trickle into the little yard. There’s no Eudox today: the lava flows must have slowed overnight. You wrap your long sweater sleeves over your hands, and your hands around your mug.
“Is everyone warm enough?” you ask the kids. “Does anyone need hot cider, or for me to start a bonfire?”
The children seem unperturbed by the morning chill, though, and it doesn’t take long for you to launch into your story. As usual, they are rapt. And of course, the unicorn is a hit.
It’s while you’re handing out the aluminum cups that everything changes, even if you don’t realize it at the time. Later, you won’t be able to say exactly when your brain registered what you were looking at - when it became clear that the tree you were staring at was not only too large for the stony Cindelian landscape, but also that it was moving.
Not moving - walking.
“Old Man Trow!” one of the kids yelps, and soon they’re all running toward him, cups discarded and snacks forgotten.
The tree half-crouches, nodding to each one.
“I am Groot,” he says gently, and his voice is a soft crumble of ancient stone and old, dark wood, rubbed glossy and smooth by waves. “I am Groot. I am Groot.”
You feel certain, in this moment, that he is greeting each child by name.
Some of the more… energetic kids are climbing the enormous newcomer. He seems unphased, letting them clamber over his back while he focuses instead on twisting little star-shaped blooms out of his fingers like it’s a magic trick.
Look, folks - nothing in my hand, or up my sleeve.
The children accept the flowers like candy or coins: sniffing deep, adding them to plaits and garlands, tucking them into pockets. One particularly wild-eyed gremlin cackles in delight, and then stuffs the flower in his fucking mouth and swallows before you can reach out and stop him.
“Uhm - “ you say, finally finding your voice and striding toward the group, “ - that won’t hurt him, will it?”
Groot - Old Man Trow - looks across to you, eye-level even though he’s bent himself up at the knees and waist.
He has the sweetest face you’ve ever seen.
“I am Groot,” he tells you kindly.
You suck in a breath because you’re pretty sure you’ve never seen eyes so knowing and so innocent, so unutterably gentle.
“I’m sorry,” you say, and try to backpedal. “I - “
“He says it’ll be fine,” Erzil translates. “There’s nothing, uhm, toxic? About a, uhhh, florma collosgus flower. At least not that one.”
You breathe in, and hesitate, but feel yourself go soft anyway.
“Hi,” you say gently. “I’m sorry for being so rude. I should’ve introduced myself.” You hold out a hand - uncertain if he’s familiar with the gesture - and tell him your name.
“I am Groot,” he returns, and Erzil grins.
“He says it’s nice to meet you, and that you have a nice light shining out of you.”
You blush. Well, if that’s not the sweetest fucking thing.
Groot doesn’t rise from his crouch. He takes your hand in one of his: tree bark, yes - but warm, like the sunrise-side of the oak that had grown in your parents’ tiny backyard on Terra. His crackled hand engulfs yours, and he tilts your palm up to make a little bowl. Carefully, in the middle, he places a perfect opal-white flower, five-pointed and bright.
“I am Groot,” he says.
“He wants to thank you. He says - “
“I look away for two minutes and you disappear? What the hell, man. You’re like a runaway puppy or somethin.’”
You lift your eyes from the blossom in your palm, and your hand in Groot’s. Over his shoulder, you see a person whom you assume is Old Man Trow’s friend - but whom appears to be a talking, bipedal raccoon in a jumpsuit.
Before you can slot that information into the appropriate file-folder in your brain, Groot is releasing your hand. He rises and turns slowly, gently plucking the children off himself before they fall.
“I am Groot,” he tells his friend.
Rocket, your brain supplies - so apparently it’s good for something after all. But then it unhelpfully adds, Rocket the Raccoon, and you slap your flower-free hand over your mouth before you can giggle out your nervousness.
“This is where they want us to set up shop? An’ you agreed? You brought us to a house full a’ little gargoyles! What were you thinkin’, Groot? They’re all gonna get frickin’ underfoot.”
His eyes skate over the giggling kids still clamoring around Groot’s knees, then scrape over the cottage and the yard. His lip curls, like he finds it all very lacking. He plants his fists on his hips, stance wide, and grimaces.
And then his eyes find you. You lower your hand slowly, and you can feel how big your eyes are, locked on him.
They rake over you: appraising, and then dismissing. Disdainful. They’re pretty eyes though: the darkest fire-opals on the shore, shards of water caught forever in layers of lava.
“Who’s the broad?”
Xeresi crests the hill, running. When they see you - and the kids - and the two newcomers - they stagger to a halt, lean their hands onto their knees, and pant breathlessly. Their eyes dart back and forth between the three of you, almost-frantic, like they’re afraid something terrible has happened before they could make it.
“Oh, hey,” Xeresi says breathlessly. “Is everything - okay?”
You blink.
“Everything is fine,” Rocket snipes. “This is it, huh? Where we’re staying?” He crosses his arms over his chest and glowers at your cottage like it’s personally offended him. “We’re supposed to park next to that hovel, huh?”
You lick your lips, bite the bottom one, and turn to stare at your little cottage critically, trying to see it through the eyes of a stranger. It’s cute, though: stone walls of speckled diorite, and purple obsidian shingles. Two sides of the structure are quilted with a kind of dark blue-green ivy, inset by a pretty purple door with an arched frame. There’s a twisty little tree with a wide, broad canopy on the other side, and sometimes in Stonefruit Season it gifts you something that looks and tastes like black plums from back home.
“Hovel seems like a strong word,” you tell him mildly.
His lip curls again. “Who are you?”
You buy yourself a little time - and some relief from that too-scorching gaze - by looking down and weaving the stem of Groot’s little flower into the weft of your sweater.
“I am Groot,” Groot says patiently, and by the time you look up, Rocket’s eyes are darting from you to Xeresi and back again: incredulous. Offended.
“This is the frickin’ storyteller you talked about? The one you want us to depend on for water and food and stuff?” He glowers up at you. “She doesn’t look like she could find a gun in an armory.”
That’s a very specific sort of insult, you think. Thankfully, you don’t need to respond right away - he’s already distracted himself with being irritated at something else. You can feel the corner of your mouth twitch in a hidden grin, despite yourself. You’re already sure he’d hate to hear it, but honestly - he’s kind of entertaining. Fascinating, really. There’s so much energy and exasperation injected into every word, every expression, every gesture.
“The cottage may not be much, but I can help make sure you’ve got warm food and neutral water,” you finally interject, blandly.
“Sure you can,” he sneers. “You can also make sure we’re surrounded by a fuc - a frickin’ classroom’s worth a’ kids. What are these guys, orphans? Is this an orphanage?” His eyes narrow on Xeresi. “Are you trying to dump us in a frickin’ orphanage?”
You hear him catch himself on the f-bomb and honestly - that sells you more than anything. Just softens you right up. He’s bad-tempered and prickly as hell - but he’s not swearing in front of the kids, and it’s kind of silly and sweet and endearing.
And like. You know you’re predisposed to forgive him because - the problem is - look.
The problem is the raccoon is sexy.
Like. What the actual fuck.
He’s clearly not a raccoon. Not anymore, if he ever was in the first place. Something’s been done to him. He walks perfectly upright. You’re pretty sure, from the brief glimpses you’ve caught, that the fingers on his paws have been rebuilt into something resembling a human hand. His legs, his stance - either he’s had countless surgeries, or some kind of genetic thing’s been done to him, or maybe both. But as much as he has a mask and a ringtail and the fuzziest fucking ears you’ve ever wanting to rub between your fingers - he’s also the furthest thing from the plump, clumsy little beasties you had occasionally shared grapes with at dusk in the park back on Terra. You’re pretty sure you’ve never even seen a shoulder-to-waist ratio like that on anyone else in real life, much less a fucking raccoon.
And to be honest, you’ve always kind of had a thing for cranky assholes with hearts of gold. Plus that voice is, like, panty-dropping.
I’ve been celibate too fucking long.
“Hi,” you say, and opt for what you hope is an easy, welcoming smile. “You must be Rocket. This is not an orphanage, and the kids are only here a few mornings every cycle.”
His narrow eyes only shift to you, and narrow further. “A daycare, then?”
“It’s the best place we have,” Xeresi says, rolling their eyes. Xeresi is one of the most patient people you know, so it’s clear that they’ve been absolutely destroyed by at least one of these guests - and you’re pretty sure you can guess which one is responsible. “You said you wanted to stay. This is the best patch of land for it right now.”
“We’re not gonna stay-stay,” Rocket corrects.
“I am Groot,” the taller half of the team protests.
“No. We just - we’re just looking for a place to camp out when we’re between jobs. And maybe - “ He’s eyeing the terrain. “Maybe we smuggle out some of this sh - uh, some a’ this stuff. Gold’s a good market right now in tech an’ engineering manufacturing. Diamond always goes for big bucks in hardware and mechanical, too. You guys got copper and aluminum? ‘Course you do,” he answers himself, turning his eyes to the low-lying volcanoes further out. “You probably got all sorts of good stuff here, just popping up outta the frickin’ ground.” He’s scanning everything around you assessingly: the scraggly tree, the garnets in the soil, the gleaming metal ores ribboning the rocks. He grumbles under his breath, “Should strip this dump for spare parts.”
Yeah, he hates this place. Though to be fair, you wonder if he maybe hates most places.
“Xeresi,” you suggest, “could you help the kids collect things up, and maybe see them home? I’ll take our guests on a little tour so they can see the space we’ve got and what we can share.”
“I am Groot,” Groot says to Xeresi - clearly some kind of expression of gratitude.
“Yeah, yeah. Thankyouverymuch. Whatever,” Rocket spits out distractedly. “Hey! Watch it! Watch the tail!” he yelps as Xeresi begins herding the kids past him to clean up the snacks. He swipes the appendage up in both hands, clutching it and flinching as the children scurry around and past him.
You turn your eyes up to Groot. It’s easier to look at the gentle giant than Rocket - for a number of reasons. Your mouth softens into a smile. You offer him your arm, and Groot looks delighted, tucking his big fingers into the crook of your elbow like a little old lady.
Rocket turns, and sees you arm-in-arm with his companion. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his dark, slender fingers, ducking his head to grimace into his palm like he’s already got a migraine.
“Okay, okay,” he says. His voice crinkles with something like contempt. “Show us around, storyteller.”
˖⁺‧₊˚✿˚₊‧⁺˖
You show Groot and Rocket where the water tank is, and you can see Rocket’s eyes tracking all the mechanical and technical bits: the old pump, the rusting pipes, the neutralizer tank. The meters and dials. There’s no shortage of water on Cindelia, but it’s all pretty acidic due to all the volcanic activity - even the rain, which is another reason why agriculture’s so tricky. You see him clock the precipitation-collecting system you’ve rigged over your winter russets: glancing over your shoulder to watch him stroll behind you and Groot’s, flicking a thoughtful, clawed finger against the low solar canopy.
To be honest, you’d been pretty proud of the thing when you’d made it: good for focusing the diminished sunlight into something your little root-garden could use, and doubling as protection against the elements. The rain is funneled into a delicate system of makeshift aquifers that lead to the municipal water system. Watching Rocket skim his eyes over it - first intrigued, and then derisive - you’re pretty certain he’s the mechanic of these two after all.
And that he finds your little inventions kinda pathetic.
By the time the so-called tour is over - door’s almost always unlocked; just come in if you need something - Rocket’s already bailing.
“Look, doll, it’s been great, but I’m gonna go back into your shitty little city and pick up our ship - “
“I’ll come with you,” you say evenly. “I need to head in anyway - I’ve got a gig tonight.”
“Oh, right. Sweetheart’s got stories to tell.” He cackles. “Get a real job.”
It kind of rolls off you, to be honest. Which you suppose might be the case for any kid who felt weird for their hobbies and then grew up to make bank off them. Admittedly, bank on Cindelia mostly refers to social capital and good will, but it’s still valuable. You don’t take advantage of it, but you know anyone in the surrounding region would probably bend over backwards to do you a favor or make sure you were safe and comfortable.
“A real job? Like, say, smuggling ore off Cindelia?” You keep your voice playful, but he scowls.
“Hey, we’re a couple a’ honest criminal lowlifes,” he tells you, and it might be funny and charming if there weren’t something dangerous in his voice. It’s a measured, low growl: a warning. “We don’t try to trick anyone into thinkin’ we’re somethin’ we ain’t.”
You know it’s fucked up that his words and his tone combine to make your toes curl in your boots, but it’s not like you can control your physiological responses, for shit’s sake. Your cheeks heat - which hopefully he reads as embarrassment or even indignation, if he even notices at all - and tell yourself firmly:
You have got to get laid.
He doesn’t wait for you to walk back - of course he doesn’t. But Groot tags along with you as you stroll down the hill to the city-proper. He speaks with you in his charming monosyllabic repetition, and you try to relax into the deep lullaby of it.
You sit with some of the regular attendees while they eat - ask about their families, their gardens, their work - and introduce Groot whenever you have the chance. As dinner winds down, you take your designated spot at the center of the room, and you tell your story.
It’s a smaller portion of an ongoing tale. You have your datapads in front of you to read from when you need it - but you don’t usually bother to do much as glance at it. You know where the tale is leading, even if the details of every new part shiver and build on the previous installment. You shift the particulars like starry marbles in a three-cup-shuffle: hiding the ones that aren’t important for today, pushing new themes forward when they are. The joy of community. The joy of chaos. The difficulty of leaning into strengths without being limited to them. The complications of what it means to be a whole person. Each element of the story is an imaginal cell, waiting to be gifted a purpose in the chrysalis of the common hall: waiting to become whatever your audience needs in the moment.
And whatever you need in the moment.
The tale unfolds itself like wet new-butterfly wings, or like one of Groot’s flowers: each word is another stepping stone to guide you and your companions into the calm evening of a long day, and to start fresh with hope in the morning.
The window-dressing is romance and violence and magic, of course. And a unicorn for the kids.
Groot watches you the whole time, shining-eyed, and the whole room clings to the sound of your voice till the end. Afterward, your listeners filter into the streets, murmuring amongst themselves: pensive, thoughtful, held in suspense. If you’ve done it right, maybe they find pieces of themselves on their way out into the world, back to their homes and hearths.
You and Groot hadn’t had a chance to eat before your story, and you’re not sure what is going on with Rocket’s dinner, so you stop on the way home to pick up some groceries to take with you. You’re pretty sure you remember that Terran raccoons like eggs and fish and fruit, and while you’re not sure if that will hold true for Rocket Not-a-raccoon, you decide to try them anyway: fresh eggs from some of the bluish ground-nesting birds that had long ago been imported from another planet, and a few servings of bright-red smoked lavafish. It’s not your favorite - the fish here leave a weird texture on your tongue; probably something about the way they evolved to survive the acidic waters - but who knows what Rocket will prefer? You already have bread and preserves for the next few days, as well as some seasonal berries, moss snacks, and dried orloni. Sorry, Spiders Georg.
“Do you want anything?” you ask Groot.
He smiles at you, peels a leaf off his forearm, and pushes it into his mouth like a fucking Fruit Roll-Up.
You snort. “Gotcha.”
“I am Groot,” he reminds you.
“True,” you concede, even though you have no idea what he’s just said. “Ready to go home?”
“I am Groot,” he agrees, gently taking the groceries from your arms and piling them into one of his.
You feel your nose wrinkle, and you grin, then turn to head back up the hill to your cottage on the outskirts of the town. “Thank you. You’re sweet.” A pause as you begin walking. “So. Uh. Think your friend is back yet?”
“I am Groot,” he tells you noncommittally.
“I see,” you say, even though you don’t. “Wanna tell me what his deal is? Any buttons I need to avoid pushing?”
The sun is molten as it sinks into the gold horizon, and the sky behind you is darkening to a color you would’ve called eggplant-purple back home. There aren’t a lot of stars visible through the faint veil of ash - just a few, as if you were in the middle of a metropolis instead of a small city-town with low lighting.
“I am Groot,” your companion says, shifting your bundle of groceries and shortening his strides to keep pace with you. “I am Groot. I am Groot.”
There’s something a little achy in the words this time: tiredness. Loss felt first, and loss felt through empathy. Secondhand fear. Vicarious anger.
“I don’t want to hurt him,” you say quietly, and hesitate. You know a thing or two about prickly people. “And it kinda seems like he might get hurt easily.”
There’s a silence, broken only by the velvet-soft crunch of the moss beneath both of your steps.
“I am Groot,” Groot says, at last. You’re pretty sure it’s a little, loving lament. He lowers his rumbly voice, so deep you can feel it under your ribcage. “I am Groot.”
“Not just because he’s scary,” you clarify. You remember Rocket’s gleaming dark-fire eyes, flecked with rubies. The glower, and the surprisingly-broad shoulders. You’d almost think he could throw you around, if he were even a little bit bigger. Goddammit, girl. Stay focused. “Which, I mean, of course, he is,” you amend quickly. “Scary.”
“I am Groot.”
“I just mean… “ you trail off. “I just mean that I’d guess something was done to him, to make him the way he is.” Your sternum aches a little. “And I’d guess it was…very unkind.”
You don’t just mean the - what? Whatever made him so tense? Bitter? Whatever made him so that he practically vibrates with a readiness to take someone’s face off in a second if he thinks he has to? If he thinks they deserve it?
There’s been some kind of emotional trauma - that much is clear. But whether it’s secondary or not, there’s clearly something else that happened to him, too. Something physical. You’re pretty sure raccoon skeletons have never been meant to allow for that kind of posture and movement. And sure, he could just be a very raccoonish-looking alien, you suppose. But you have suspicions, and they make your heart sort of stutter with a phantom agony.
Grief for a stranger.
The two of you walk for a while in the gathering dark. The pathway glimmers ahead of you.
“I am Groot,” your guest explains at last, and you can hear the sadness in his crackling, deep-forest-voice. “I am Groot.”
It means nothing to you - except, maybe, a confirmation of everything you’d suspected.
Someone had hurt Rocket - in a way that would never stop hurting. In his body.
And deeper.
Up on the hillside, you can see a small ship parked across from your cottage - Rocket’s and Groot’s, you assume. The docking ramp is down, and warm light filters out from inside. You can hear something clanking.
“I am Groot,” Groot tells you, and ignores the ship in favor of carrying the groceries into the house. You aren’t sure what to make of his parting comment, but you slow your strides, then drift over to the side of the ramp and cautiously lean against it.
“Knock knock?”
There’s another metallic clang, and then a muffled curse. Rocket’s head comes into view around a corner.
“What?”
He’s disgruntled and impatient, and the fur on his face is rumpled and smashed flat in places. There’s a set of goggles pushed on top of his head, the glass gleaming red.
Oh. He’s fucking cute, too. Dammit.
“Have you had dinner?” you ask mildly.
His gaze narrows. “No.”
“Do you want dinner?” you try again.
He just eyes you suspiciously. The seconds click by in your head, and the meadowbugs chime like little bells.
“Okay,” you say at last. “I’m gonna bring you some food, and you can just…pick at it. Or not.”
You step away from the ramp, turning.
“Hey,” Rocket calls out. You swing back to him like he’s said your name, like he’s called you out of a crowd. You try to ignore the fact that you’re already gravitating so hard toward him: a meteor pulled down through the atmosphere, burning up in a flood of sparks upon entry.
“Yeah?”
He tilts his head. Hesitates. “You Terran?”
You blink. “What?”
He rolls his eyes, then enunciates each word, neatly dipped in crunchy candy-coated sarcasm. “Are. You. Terran.”
You feel your brow crease. “I was,” you admit. “Why?”
Something in his face falters - a brief crumple of regret in the corners of his mouth and the tilt of his brows. Then he shakes his head. “Knew a Terran once,” he says only, then grimaces. “He was an idiot too.”
It startles a laugh right out of you, and you slap a hand over your mouth even as Rocket’s eyes widen in surprise too - like he didn’t expect you to find his muttered insult amusing.
“It does seem to be a trait many of us share,” you stage-whisper sideways at him, with a conspiratorial wink.
His eyes are big on you, and for a second, you think the corner of his mouth might be twitching in an answering grin. But then he smothers it with a scoff - tch - and ducks away.
You fill up a plate: a little yaro-egg-cheese scramble, a few slices of smoked lavafish, the plumpest pepper-berries you have. An aluminum cup of cider, warmed and spiced. Groot watches you fix the plate, his big dark eyes solemn and thoughtful.
“I am Groot,” he tells you seriously, like he doesn’t want you to get your hopes up.
“Oh, that’s fine,” you play along. “I don’t need accolades. Do you know what he’s doing out there? Does your ship need repairs?”
“I am Groot,” Groot says, and then repeats himself a handful of times. It all just seems like a confirmation of Rocket’s creative genius. Something about Groot’s tone has you imagining that Rocket can build something out of anything, and that he’s probably working on a machine that sorts gemstones, or extracts modest amounts of surface ore.
Rocket doesn’t acknowledge you with anything more than a grunt when you drop off the little plate, and then you’re back inside, cleaning up and starting a little fire to keep the cottage warm. You offer Groot some cider, which he surprises you by accepting. His branchlike fingers make the aluminum cup look doll-sized. The two of you sit in the quiet for a while, watching the little fire in the hearth, and it feels so cozy and just…nice. You haven’t lived with anyone else since your first few cycles on Cindelia, and you’d forgotten the loveliness of the quiet company, as sweet and warm as the spiced cider cradled in your palms.
“I’m not sure what made you two come out to Cindelia,” you tell Groot, “but I’m glad you’re here.” You hesitate. “I hope everything is okay.”
“I am Groot,” he says, and it sounds like he’s carrying too much in his heavy voice.
“Do you want to tell me?” you ask softly.
He looks at you soulfully. “I am Groot,” is all he says - just the once.
“Okay,” you respond agreeably. “But I’m with you, all right? We’re friends now.”
The two of you sit until the room grows purple-dark, and the sight of the fire blurs, shimmering and low, in front of your drowsy eyes.The world shifts around you in dark watercolor, in and out of a drifting dream.
When you wake - with a crick in your neck and a dull weight in your lower back - the fire is only fuschia embers, and everything in the house has been blanketed in black velvet. There’s no more muted clanking from outside. You arch, and the pebbles of your spine pop into place.
“I am Groot,” Groot whispers from the other chair.
“Mm,” you groan. “I should go to bed. You’re sure you’re okay sleeping on the ship? I have a couple bedrolls stashed in the closet. I think you’d fit on one. Rocket’s welcome to one, too.”
It’s too dark to read Groot’s expression, but you see the shadow of him rise beside you. “I am Groot,” he says quietly, and pats your head gently before turning and drifting creakily out the door.
˖⁺‧₊˚✿˚₊‧⁺˖
The morning is free of children, which is probably good, because your body aches. You’ve woken to the sound of clattering and clanking outside, which you take to mean that the new neighbors are also already up. You slowly drag yourself out of the loft - only to find Groot already in the tiny kitchen, waiting for you. With both big hands, he clutches an aluminum cup of steaming cider and offers it to you.
“That’s so sweet of you,” you tell him, touched. “Thank you.” You hadn’t expected you could find him any more endearing, but here you are. You curl up in one of the armchairs, and take a grateful sip.
And immediately regret it.
You’re not sure what the hell Groot has done to the cider, but it is possibly the worst thing you’ve tasted in your entire life. Spiced mud. Burnt caramel-tar. Grit clings to your teeth and tongue, and tears spring to your eyes.
Flavorful.
You gaze up at him, eyes watering. You try to smile.
“Did you… uhm, did you put dirt in this?”
Groot smiles broadly, looking very pleased with himself.
There’s a snicker from the doorway, and you look up to see Rocket, leaning against the frame: shoulders pinned to the purple trim, hips relaxed and jutting forward, tail swinging lazily behind his calves. Too late, you register that the clanking outside has stopped.
“I coulda told you. Groot’s not exactly a six-pulsar chef.”
“Mmm,” you say evenly, with a benign little smile. “You could’ve. And yet you didn’t.”
“Sure didn’t,” he agrees, swaggering in and digging through your cupboards till he finds some dried orloni and pressed moss snacks. He wrinkles his nose at the moss, then offers it to Goot.
“I am Groot,” Groot offers, accepting the moss.
“By the way,” Rocket adds casually. “Got up this morning and came in for some grub. There was a flerken wandering into your bedroom. Did you know you have one squatting here?”
You nod cautiously, wondering where this is going. “His name is Proginoskes.”
Rocket’s brows flare up in surprise, and a sort of a dry disbelief. “You named it.” He rolls his eyes. “Of course you did. Frickin’ Terrans. No sense of self-preservation.” He scoffs. “You know flerkens are dangerous - right, storyteller?” He says it like it’s your name - probably because he’s forgotten your real one - and it’s coated in something just shy of contempt.
You blink at Rocket, then let your expression melt into something equally wry. “And you let one meander into my room while I was sleeping?”
He shrugs and offers up a very fuck-you grin.
“I am Groot,” Groot admonishes.
You snort in spite of yourself. “Progo’s harmless,” you tell Rocket matter-of-factly. “Unless you’re Spiders Georg.”
It’s Rocket’s turn to blink, the bitter amusement falling off his face like old leaves. “Unless I’m spiders?”
You chuckle. “Spiders Georg is the orloni who lives under the water tank,” you inform him, and he stares at you with wide, incredulous fire-opal eyes.
“You named a fuckin’ orloni, too? What’s next, storyteller? It’s vermin.”
You scowl and brandish your aluminum cup of highly-suspect cider at him. You can handle him mocking you, but - “Show some respect. Spiders Georg is a contributing member of this household. He eats a lot of bugs. Just because you don’t see why someone is good or important - it doesn’t mean they’re vermin.”
Rocket flinches - so much harder than you ever would have anticipated. Actually fully recoils, like you’ve just slapped him across the face. Really threw your whole body into it. He looks up at you with big, still eyes, and you wrack your brain because there’s nothing you’ve said that you think could’ve hurt him? But you’d almost suspect that the expression on his face is wounded.
“I am Groot.” The giant’s voice is gentle.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Quick as a burst of spark and cinders, Rocket’s already recovered. He brushes the topic of vermin off his forearms and hands like it’s coated him in cobwebs.
By the time you grab a nibble and step outside, you can see that - just since yesterday, apparently - Rocket has indeed been building something to extract the ore from the earth where it ribbons through rocks. He’s not actually stripping anything - as a single soul, he probably couldn’t if he tried. But he is gathering up a nice little store of gold and copper and nickel. The collection only grows as Cindel rotates through the day. And the next - and the next.
It takes a cycle or two before you get anything out of Rocket that isn’t snark.
“Good conductivity,” he finally tells you - casually - when you ask what makes the ores so worth his efforts. You remember he’d mentioned some sort of industrial markets, but you can’t recall which. “I can use ‘em in my own stuff. Sell the rest in tech and electrical. Make some units on the side when we’re not huntin’ bounties.”
The moment is memorable just because it’s the first time he’s responded to you without being kind of a jackass. He’s still not often willing to engage in conversation - not unless he’s being sarcastic or mocking you, which for some reason you find vaguely amusing and stupidly endearing. But every once in a while, something shifts: like if you could just catch him unaware, with his defenses down, he’d want to be your friend.
You kinda crave those moments.
So you do your best to make them happen as often as possible: asking lighthearted questions, leading him into whatever little scraps of his story that he’s willing to share in any given moment. You offer up the diamonds and garnets you’ve been pitching out of your garden like garbage. His eyes gleam at the mention of them. Yeah, he’ll take ‘em. Mostly ‘cause he wants ‘em and he can use ‘em for his own tools and shit, but they also both go for a ton of units in the industrial black markets: abrasives and polishing agents; drill bits and blades. No, him an’ Groot ain’t tryin’ to put down roots or anything - and no, that ain’t a pun; what the hell are you laughin’ for? - but they need a base of operations mostly under-the-radar, because -
“Something bad’s coming,” he tells you gloomily on evening, while you and Groot are sitting on the docking ramp in the dusk, watching him build something that looks a lot like a landmine. “We left the Galactic Rim in Andromeda to get away from it.” He winces. “We left some - decent people behind.” His fire-opal eyes flicker to the side, and he looks hunted for a moment. Haunted. “Good people,” he amends, and his voice is rickety with regret.
You lick your lips nervously, and set aside the dried orloni you’d been pecking at. There’s a story there, you’re sure - but Rocket won’t appreciate you asking for it.
“I am Groot,” Groot says softly, and it sounds like - well, maybe you’re learning to understand him after all, because it sounds like he thinks he could’ve done something differently. Been more persuasive.
“No-one coulda convinced me to do anything I didn’t wanna do,” Rocket tells his friend abruptly, and turns away. His forearm comes up and swipes briskly at his mouth, like he’s trying to hide a tremble. Everything inside you softens at the gesture.
Groot is not, apparently, the only one who blames himself for the people left behind.
“What was it?” you ask softly. “What’s coming? When is it coming?”
Rocket shakes his head. “Storytime is over,” he sneers. “Don’t think you’re gettin’ to use my material for your little job, either, sweetheart.”
The routine goes like this for cycles: Rocket rises early and buries himself in extracting and refining little stores of gems and metals, building things, apparently upgrading his ship. More than once you’ve seen him working on some cannons you don’t recognize: massive weapons, some three and four times his own size.
Every morning, you lovingly accept Groot’s cups of cider, and lovingly try to pour them out when he’s not looking. Most days, Eudox visits - sometimes with children in tow, and other days without them. On days he’s alone, you chat over cider. He glances over at the spaceship surreptitiously, flinching when he sees your smaller neighbor.
What did Rocket do while he was in town? you wonder. Cindelians aren’t usually this skittish with newcomers.
Not even the cranky ones.
The most steady, regular interaction you have with Rocket, honestly, is when the water tank is acting up - which is basically around every three days or so. It’s old and rusty, and it will stop pumping water overnight sometimes, or the meters will start reading wrong and not supply enough neutralizer. Sometimes the valves stick. Each time, you attack the tank and its surrounding plumbing with wrenches and clamps, siphons and grease. You replace bits of supply pipe and liner, nuts and washers. Once, the spindle on the spigot broke, and that had been a fucking mess.
And every time, like clockwork, Rocket comes to spectate, drinking deeply from a bottle of some kind of off-planet booze he must keep stocked in the hold of his ship. He leans back lazily against the side of the cottage, smirking like the smug jackass he is and taking swigs from his drink while he watches you struggle and flounder.
You should probably be annoyed about it, because he can clearly see everything you’re doing wrong and - you suspect - could probably make the whole rig better than new in a day or two.
But it’s, like, weirdly hot.
“Help me? Please?” you’d asked him once, hopefully, wiping your forehead with one forearm. You’d been sweating and overheated despite the growing Shadow Season chill, and you’d discarded your sweater while you’d been working.
But he’d just taken another drink and given you a shit-eating grin. “Nah.”
What an asshole. You kinda love it.
Every rotation becomes colder than the last. The frost begins to glaze the grasses and moss as soon as the sun sets, pale gold and champagne on the horizon. It lingers till noon, crunching softly under foot. The lava flows cool more quickly than before: scarlet and magenta flecked with amber, rather than free-flowing gold.
Groot’s presence remains a warm quilt in the cottage. You’re pretty sure each breath has him curling his roots a little deeper into your heart. He doesn’t seem to feel the cold - at least not the same way you do - but you suspect Rocket is another story. Sure, he has fur. And yeah, maybe you still haven’t noticed him in anything but an endless rotation of sleeveless jumpsuits - and you do notice - but when you see him working outside and his breath is a frosted ghost in the pale lavender air, your shoulders shiver on his behalf.
“Hey,” you call out to him. Dusk comes early these days, and your sweaters have become thicker. He’s been working on something - you don’t even fucking know what it is at this point - out on the moss all day, and he’s gotta be hungry. And cold.
And you just know he’s going to be working longer. Probably until even the spaceship lights aren’t enough for him to see what he’s doing.
So of course you’ve brought him some warm cider and orloni stew.
“What?” He says snippishly, and you just set the steaming mug and bowl down casually on the temporary workbench he’s situated beside himself. You’ve already deduced that the only way to get Rocket to accept anything is by pretending you don’t notice when he does.
You let your eyes flutter over him and have to wrangle back a startled gasp: steam from his breath has collected in the fur of his brows, and has refrozen on his fur.
This poor fucking guy.
He hesitates, eyes still on his machinery, then cups his hands over his mouth and nose to breathe on them. Rubs them together for warmth, cracks the knuckles, and grabs the bowl of soup. Pauses, like maybe he’s letting the warmth seep through the ceramic and into his hands.
Then he digs in.
He’s never accepted your little gifts of food in front of you before, so either this is a milestone, or he’s really fucking starving.
Probably fucking starving, you decide when he glares at you.
“What?” he snaps again.
“Nothing,” you say quickly, eyes flickering to his frost-rimed fur briefly, then away. “You just look cold.”
“M’fine as long as I keep moving,” he mutters distractedly.
You frown. Because yeah, he seems like a guy who has to keep moving - for a lot of reasons, only some of them physical. You’d love for him to enjoy a moment of goddamn stillness, just for a second.
The next time you’re down in the city to tell stories, you head to the local clothing trades, and find a stack of sweaters that look like they might be Rocket’s size. It’s not like he’s let you get to know him well yet - you don’t even know enough to really say if he’ll wear a sweater, much less what his clothing preferences are - but as for yourself, you’re a texture person. You find the softest shirts in the stack: one in burnt orange, and one in variegated sapphire hues. Trying to imagine him in a sweater is, like, possibly the best thing you’ve ever thought of? - and it makes a little smile flatten the corners of your mouth despite yourself. On the way out, you also consider a soft pair of gloves and boots - but you’re not sure about sizing or if shoes would even be comfortable for him, so for now, you just leave with the sweaters tucked under your arm.
The days are so short now that the world has dissolved into midnight-purple velour by the time you head back up the hill, and the grasses and mosses are glazed with ice-crystals underfoot. When you get up to the ship, it’s all lit up: an open ramp, and a trapezoid of warm illumination carpeting the frost-glittering ground.
“Knock knock,” you say whimsically, remembering your first time hovering at this door.
Groot’s head pops around the corner. “I am Groot,” he greets enthusiastically.
“Yeah, yeah, whaddaya want,” Rocket deadpans, strolling up from somewhere in the back of the ship. He’s got his goggles perched on his head again.
“A couple things,” you admit, meeting his gaze evenly.
He rolls his eyes. “Spit it out, storyteller.”
“First, I wanted to make sure you were warm enough out here,” you tell him seriously. He blinks, nonplussed. “I have a couple bedrolls in the cottage, if you want to sleep inside. Like, by an actual fire.”
Rocket backs up a step. You’ve never seen a look like that on his face. For a moment, you’d swear he looks - almost nervous.
“I am Groot.”
That jolts him back into the present, face flattening into annoyance. “No,” he snaps at his friend. He looks back to you. “We’re fine,” he tells you, a little more evenly. “I’m a frickin’ mechanical and engineering genius,” he adds witheringly. “You think I can’t keep a ship warm? Fuckin’ insulting, t’be honest.”
You wince. Well, this is going downhill a lot more quickly than you’d imagined “Sorry,” you apologize, and mean it. “I wasn’t trying to… “ What? Question his ability? Minimize his skill?
Hurt his feelings?
But Rocket’s already waving your apologies away. “What else?” he asks abruptly.
You grimace. “Well. Uhm. At the risk of offending you further… “
His eyes narrow on you, gleaming red-brown topaz. You’re suddenly very uncertain that this little offering will be received in the spirit with which it was intended.
“I got you something?” you squeak out, lifting up the two folded sweaters.
He blinks. The narrowed eyes go wide, dark fire-opals flicking from you to the sweaters, and back. His lower jaw drops just a little, and then snaps shut.
“If you don’t want them, that’s fine,” you rush to tell him. “But - it’s getting cold out.” You hesitate, and raise them higher. “They’re… the softest ones I could find?”
Rocket doesn’t move. His face is a careful blank, and you realize you’ve been standing there like an idiot for so long that your arms are starting to ache.
“I am Groot.”
“Uh, okay,” you say, and lower the sweaters slowly. You feel like a hole has opened up in your gut and everything has dropped into another dimension. The sudden emptiness of embarrassment has you nauseous. “Sorry. Sorry. That was dumb? You probably don’t need - or want them. Yeah, sorry. Uhhhhm.” You tuck the sweaters back under your arm. “Yeah. Stupid. Have a good night. If you need anything, I’ll be - inside. Obviously.”
Oof. You back up a couple steps, till you’re out of the prism of light cast by the ship. He can probably still see you - you’d guess his lowlight vision is raccoon-quality or better - but the shadows curling around you make you feel safe enough to turn and scurry back to your cottage.
Fucking stupid, you tell yourself, cringing. Holy shit.
You leave the folded sweaters on the table, and try not to wince. You can take them back to trades tomorrow - but for now, you kind of want to hide under the table. Better yet, go curl up under Spider Georg’s rock and die there. Instead, you start building a fire in the hearth, distracting yourself with creating a little source of light and heat in your tiny home. By the time you’re done, though, your humiliation is just as bright-hot and piercing as it was before, and every time you force yourself to relive it - a fucking glutton for punishment apparently - your stomach drops out again, right through your feet.
You hear a quiet, annoyed mew, and when you look up, you see Progo waiting a few feet away. He looks both patient and long-suffering.
“C’mere, kid,” you say to him, reaching out before he can do what you ask - not that he would. He lets you collect him in his arms though, snuggling your face into his generous mane of soft fur for a few long moments before batting gently at your face when he believes he’s offered enough comfort.
You let him go, and he strolls into your bedroom to take up his nightly perch in your loft.
“Hot cider,” you mutter to yourself, hoping the coziness of a warm drink will ease your mortification and give you a little perspective. You lean against the cupboards while the sweet, spiced drink warms on the stove, and you grip the countertop and consider how nice it would be if you could just crawl into bed and stay there till you shrivel up into nothing. Ugh. You do not want to see Rocket in the morning -
There’s a knock on the door - high in the frame, and hollow. It’s a Groot-knock. You wince again - but at least Groot will be incalculably, ineffably kind.
“Come in,” you call, and you’re surprised by how reedy your voice is: embarrassment cracking it into diminished notes.
The door creaks behind you.
“Uh, hey.”
You blink, and turn. Thank god it’s dark in here except for the fire, because your humiliation is back in full color. “Hey,” you manage to squeak out. Groot is ducking under the arched doorway, yes - but Rocket’s entered in front of him, peering around the little cottage and rubbing the back of his neck, like he’s the one feeling self-conscious. Like even though he’s been in here at least a hundred times by now, he’s never really looked around, never noticed it as anything but a place he could get food and water and maybe steal things from.
“You said we could stop over. Right?”
“Uhm,” you say, and your brain stutters on itself. “Yeah. Of course. What did you need?”
“We - Groot thought we should just come hang out for a minute. Be neighborly or somethin’. Say thank you for tryin’ to be nice.”
“Oh,” you say blankly, trying to click the pieces together in your brain. They fumble and clatter instead. “Oh. Okay. Sure.” A pause. “Uh, take a seat. D’you want some cider?” You shiver your shoulders a little, trying to physically shake off your discomfort. “I, uhm, I have dirt and dirt-free options.”
A snort escapes Rocket, startling you both. Groot’s already making himself as comfortable as he can for his size, folding himself into an armchair, seemingly oblivious. Rocket sort of…shifts toward you, sidling toward the kitchen in a sideways drift.
“Dirt-free’s fine, I guess,” he tells you, and it kind of sounds like he’s teasing you. It’s different from his typical mocking tone - almost playful. You let the beginnings of a smile ghost up in the corners of your mouth, and add more cider to the stove.
When you turn back to face him again, though, your heart bottoms out. Rocket’s standing at the edge of the table, and one slender dark hand is floating over the stack of sweaters. He’s looking at them with furrowed brows, and his fingers skim the cloud-soft weave. The wooliness sinks plush beneath his touch, and when he strokes his fingertips across the threads, they almost cling to each other. They linger.
They want.
You’ve never seen someone look at a fucking shirt like that. You couldn’t say exactly what you’re seeing - something hungry, something halfway-despairing - but it cracks right through your ribs, punches you in both lungs, and makes a little soft sound bump against your throat.
His head whips around and up to face you at the noise, and he snatches his hand back like he’s been burned. No, that’s not right. Like he’s afraid he’s ruined something. Like he’s afraid something is about to be snatched away.
You swallow. “It was… presumptuous of me,” you say at last. “To - I shouldn’t have. But if you want them, they’re yours.” You try for a smile, but it feels lopsided and meager. Your voice goes whispery against your will. “I just wanted you to be warm.”
He just stares up at you, and blinks, and then looks back to the sweaters.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll take ‘em.”
You nod. “Okay. Thank you.”
He blinks again, and his jaw works a little, and then he shrugs. You turn back to the stove, wrap three aluminum cups in little crocheted sleeves to protect against burns, and ladle in the hot cider.
“Help me?” you ask in your most unassuming voice. “Please?”
He’s already at your side soundlessly, sweaters tucked under one arm. He takes two of the cups and heads toward Groot, handing his friend the extra cup before you can say another word. Then he hesitates, staring at the single empty armchair.
“Go for it,” you tell him lightly. “I’m going to sit by the fire anyway.”
He hesitates again, then frowns, furrows his brow, and leaps nimbly into the chair without so much as splashing his cider. You lower yourself cross-legged on the rug by the hearth, and tug your own sweater sleeves over your hands before lifting the cup again and blowing on the warmth inside.
The quiet is surprisingly comfortable between the three of you. You can see Rocket’s shoulders slowly easing, and you feel it echoed in your own. Groot pinches his little cup in his enormous wooden fingers, and tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. The firelight flickers across the room: gold and rosy against the amethyst dark, a perfectly-shimmering, jewel-toned dream. You sip your cider. It’s still a little too hot, but it doesn’t scald you, and the flavor is spicy and sweet. You roll out your neck, and for a moment, everything seems so relaxing and soft and velvety.
“I am Groot,” Groot rumbles after a few long, surprisingly tranquil moments.
Rocket clears his throat. “He, uh, wants me to tell you we’re gonna be leaving for a few cycles.”
You feel your shoulders straighten suddenly, and your eyes drop to Rocket’s. There’s a sudden little hollow spot behind your sternum - just the size of a ripe cherry, but it aches. “Oh. I - okay. You’ll be back, though?”
There’s a pause, and then Rocket raises one brow. “Does it matter?”
You try for a winsome grin. “Who else is gonna watch me make a fool of myself trying to fix the water tank?”
He snorts. “For fuck’s sake. Good point.” He rubs the back of his neck again. “Yeah. We’ll be back. This is the best place we’ve found to - sorta hide out, I guess.”
You tilt your head, and gnaw at your lower lip nervously. “No pressure. And, like, scout’s honor or whatever the deep-space equivalent of that is I guess - I promise not to tell any part of your story to anyone else. But… can I ask what you’re hiding from?”
Rocket’s eyes slant sideways - cautious. “Nothin’. Uh, we got a lot of warrants out on us. Cindelia’s got that policy against extradition. That’s all.”
Well. That’s not it. Or at any rate, that’s not all. You feel your hands go soft and careful on your aluminum cup - because underneath it all, he’s fucking scared, and not just of whatever he thinks he’s running from. He’s scared to trust anything, to let anything in.
So you just nod agreeably, and you let it go.
“I am Groot.”
Rocket sighs. Coughs a little. Meets your eyes slowly. “Ever heard of Ronan the Accuser? Or…an infinity stone?”
You shake your head, mouth pinned closed, eyes wide: desperately trying not to shatter whatever spell’s got him in the mods to share something of himself.
“We hadn’t, either,” he admits at last. His voice is hesitant: it doesn’t want to leave his throat, and it crowds reluctantly behind his teeth. “Well, we knew about Ronan. He’s a big name in the Andromeda Galaxy. A Kree radical.”
Oh. You have heard of the Kree. They’re spoken about with the same disdain as the Shi’ar, here on Cindelia.
“But the infinity stones, we hadn’t come across before. They’re, uh - I don’t know, the frickin’ Collector explained it better an’ I wasn’t listening like I shoulda been. But they’re gems or something.” Rocket shakes his head, looking frustrated. “That sounds fuckin’ stupid. They’re a sorta semi- or super-naturally occurring phenomenon, I guess. They each control some kinda universal property.” His eyes flick sideways, nervous. “They’re frickin’ dangerous. We saw one tear a girl apart. Damn near killed an Elder and shredded his whole fuckin’ museum. Only reason I’m still alive is ‘cause a’ this guy.” He jabs a clawed finger at Groot. “All this was…about three years ago. Ronan got the power stone. Some of our friends…”
His voice cracks a little and he stares into the fire. His fingers trace lightly over the soft weave of the sweaters in his lap, petting the pile of wooly fiber like it’s a cat. You don’t even think he knows he’s doing it.
“It was a mess. One of ‘em called Ronan to us, which is how the bastard got the gem. One tried to get the stone back, and almost got killed too. The last one tried to save her, and they both got scooped by Ravagers.” He swallows. “Groot and I left. We fucked around here and there. Went from galaxy to galaxy, trying to get further out. There’s no stopping Ronan now that he’s got that thing. He’s gonna mow down the entire frickin’ universe. Just hope it takes him a while to get all the way out here.”
“I am Groot,” Groot says, and the sound is a quiet lament. Rocket dips his head, and for the first time, he lets you see a little of the misery you’d figured he’d been hiding.
“It was my call,” he admits, and his voice sounds a little ragged. “To leave. Groot wanted to stay. Wanted to try to help our friends. Our people.”
Ah. There it is. Not all his self-loathing and regret - but a knot of it, caught in his throat, dampening his eyes. The ruby-red of them grows glossy in the firelight, silver-rimmed. His tattered words float out on the gold shadows like feathery ghosts, and you let them drift down till they come to a rest: on the floor, on the carpet, on your shoulders and the crown of your head.
“I’m sorry,” you say at last, and Rocket’s shoulders jolt, his head snapping up and around to face you.
“What?” His voice is a blink in the darkness, soft and stunned.
“I’m sorry. That you lost your friends.” You keep your voice quiet and even and warm: a lightweight quilt against the cold. A woolen sweater, offered with careful hands. His eyes are so big and his fingers go still on the shorts in his lap, and you’re suddenly sure he’s going to run. “It must have been hard,” you tell him gently. “To have to go.”
“I didn’t lose ‘em,” he says, his voice suddenly sharp - though you don’t think that anger’s directed at you, for once. “I left ‘em.”
You lick your lower lip, then bite it. Careful, you caution yourself.
“We’re all just trying to make the best decisions we can with the information we have,” you offer finally, softly. “At any given time.”
He gives you his eyes, wide open and silent in the darkness, flickering the firelight back at you. His brow creases, and he stares into his aluminum cup, then suddenly tosses back the cider like it’s something harder.
“We should go,” he tells Groot.
Groot lowers his head and frowns. “I am Groot.”
Rocket tosses his empty cup to Groot, and the latter catches it, standing begrudgingly and taking the drinkware to the kitchen. He places them next to the sink - slipping them out of their crocheted sleeves, and washing them carefully with clumsy-big fingers.
“We’ll be back,” Rocket says to you, but he doesn’t look at you when he rises. “Don’t go givin’ away our spot.”
It’s a far-friendlier farewell than you think you ever could have expected, at least from Rocket. “I’d never,” you promise solemnly. Now he does glance over at you, and lets a little ghost of a grin curl his lip.
“Stay outta trouble. No adopting any more flerkens while we’re gone.”
You frown. “What if there’s a really cute one?”
“Storyteller.” Rocket tucks his sweaters under one arm, and looks up at you. His head tilts, almost consideringly. “Seriously. Stay outta trouble. We’ll be back soon.”
You trail them both to your door, and lean against the frame as they head to their ship.
“Hey,” you call out when they reach the ramp. They pause in unison - two perfect dark silhouettes - and turn back to you. “Travel safe, okay? And come back to me.”
You can hear Groot’s rumbly voice from here, and even if you can’t make out the words, you know what they are. You see the shape of him nod, and wave, and step onto the ramp and upward.
Rocket is still for a long moment, and you can’t see his eyes - but you can feel them. You wonder how much of you he can see in the darkness, with his eyes so much sharper than yours, even on the off-chance that they haven’t been augmented by whoever tore apart the rest of him.
Soundlessly, then, he turns and heads up into the ship, and the ramp draws closed.
˖⁺‧₊˚✿˚₊‧⁺˖
When you wake in the morning and look out your window, the ship in the meadow is gone: quiet as a cloud in the ash-lilac sky. You sigh, and scrub your palms across your face, and slide out of bed. Something smells different in the cottage: clean, and clear, like ice-glazed honeysuckle.
At least one of them must have come back after your goodbyes last night - either in the shadows, or just before they left sometime in the early dawn. It must have been Groot, you think, because - whimsically and so lovingly it makes your bones ache - there’s an aluminum cup on the counter, and it overflows with sparkly moonstone blooms.
Each one is as tiny and perfect as a snowflake, and they knit together into a perfect constellation of little white stars.