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[puddledancer]

[Quill's lounging in the curve of a ruin, his feet up on a protruding piece of rock, a drink in one hand as he holds his comm device with the other]

Hey, listen, I know you're all really busy with your Geraldo versus Donahue thing, and that Southern lady's doing her best to be Sally Jesse without the shoulder pads? But I'm gettin' real tired of the daytime talk show, and there's nothing else on here except maybe knockoff Cheers. And your robot Sam doesn't even have a Diane, so it's pretty awful.

I touched that glowy thing in the middle of town and it put some weeeeeeird-ass junk in my head, which, hey, not the first time I touched a magic rock and it did stuff? But I'd love a little more to go on than that.

When you're not busy.

Comments

[mrsklover]

[Richie isn't even drinking anymore. He's just nodding along with everything Peter says. The more wild it gets the more he nods.]

Shit, man. I wouldn't turn that down either. I had to fucking kill this goddamn clown and we had a guy with us all jacked up. Yeah, fat lot of good it did us. But that dude? The Destroyer? Hell yeah, I woulda dragged him along too.

[He sips his drink and tops off Peter's, enthralled.]

So you had to have gotten out. With your band of fugitives from a supermax prison. Damn. Even the tree had a warrant? Fuck.

[puddledancer]

You bet he did. Rocket was the brains, Groot was kinda the brawn. Dude could take an arm or a leg, stretch it out in this gigantic vine, grab someone, and whip 'em around like Indiana Jones on steroids. So Rocket said we all need to grab stuff so he can build something for the breakout, right? And Groot just immediately starts going for the first thing, a battery in the mess hall, like a lunkhead while we're all listening. None of us notice. You with me?

[he raises his eyebrows in the universal 'this is about to get good' expression]

As Rocket finished the list, he went - [cue a passable impression, honestly] "Now the LAST thing I need is that quarnax battery, so don't go gettin' that 'til we got the rest, or all hell's gonna break loose". I shit you not, at that exact friggin' moment, Groot rips the battery out.

We all just freeze. That one little second feels like forever, then suddenly there's alarms goin' off everywhere, lights flashing, guards pouring out of every damn hole they could've been hiding in, guns drawn. Some of 'em don't even give us a chance to surrender before they start shooting. We all split to get the stuff we need, and I'm dodging bullets left and right like I'm in an Atari game. The thing Rocket made me go get? Some guy's prosthetic leg. Me, I don't have a damn clue how he's gonna use it, but if he needs it, he needs it. I end up haggling with the guy and transferring him like, ten thousand credits, and book it to the rendezvous point under the guard tower. Groot has us all grab on and grows up so we can reach the top, all while we're still getting shot at. Gamora and Drax are taking guards down left and right, and somewhere in the middle of it all, Rocket got a gun and he's right in the thick of it too. Here's me. Legendary space pirate. Confirmed badass. Clinging on to a living tree with a fake leg. Yeah - yeah that feels real great. But then we get up to the tower and Rocket rigs the battery and the other stuff to the terminal and uses it to shut off the gravity for everything but the mobile guard terminal. Genius. Only, guess what he DIDN'T use?

[mrsklover]

[ This is the best story Richie has ever heard in his entire life. He isn't even drinking anymore, so riveted by this whole thing.

Hearing about what wasn't used, he bursts into laughter, understanding at once what happened.]

Oh my God. The rodent fucked with you! The little fucking racoon bastard fucked with you and didn't even need the leg at all, did he? Ten thousand credits, all that shit, and he was just being a dick?

[puddledancer]

[yep. if he hadn't already been getting strong Rocket vibes from Richie, the fact that he understands right away just seals the deal. congratulations, Tozier, you are now his replacement raccoon. Peter snuffles out a laugh]

Spoken like someone who truly knows the Way of the A-Hole. You bet he did. I was too impressed by the rest to stay pissed for too long, especially since sellin' that orb was eventually gonna make up for the money I lost and then some. We used the guard pod to get to where they were keepin' all our stuff and had my ship impounded, and got the hell outta Dodge. Gamora knew someone willin' to buy the orb ... and oh man, you are gonna love hearin' about the place where this a-hole lived.

[he took another drink to wet his whistle, then leaned forward across the table with an indulgent grin.]

Knowhere. And I mean, that was what they called the place. With a K. See, a long long time ago there were these gigantic things called Celestials. Humanoid, but - when one dies, they leave behind a skull the size of a goddamn planet. And that's Knowhere: a Celestial skull that got turned into a mining colony. Most surreal thing you've ever seen in your damn life.

[mrsklover]

[Little king Trashmouth!]

Knowhere. What the fuck. You know someone came up with that as a joke and then people just took it seriously for too long. That's such a fucking troll of a name. I love it. I am going to call wherever I live here 'Nowear'. Like 'no underwear' but without the under. It's gonna be great. Not a Celestial skull great but...

[Which...Actually. ]

Okay. Seriously? A skull? That is fucking insane. Also really fucking morbid. The skull is just drifting around and people are living and mining it? Surreal doesn't even fucking cover it. That is absolutely crazy. I don't know if I am more freaked out by that or by the fact that these giant assholes were just walking around in your galaxy somewhere.

[puddledancer]

[He's Gay!]

Oh they absolutely did. The Tivan family is just a bunch of self-absorbed shits anyway, it's on brand for them. One of them actually managed to be so extra in a family full of extra that he got exiled to Sakar, which is like ... the galaxy's junkyard. Literally. We'll circle back to that one.

But yeah, Knowhere is a trip and a half. Celestials haven't really walked around in eons, though. They're kind of like ... the space version of the dinosaurs. I've only met one other one, and uh.

[how do you tell someone that was your dad? seriously, how does that conversational leap even work? the thought occurs to him that maybe Knowhere is the remains of someone Ego knew, maybe even killed, and - yeah, he's just gonna finish off his drink.]

That's a whole other long-ass story.

[mrsklover]

[Richie could see the look of haunted memories on Peter's face. He nods and refills their glasses before clinking them together and draining half of it.]

Don't worry about that story. In fact, you don't look nearly drunk enough to be even thinking about another story. Bottom's up and toss it back. We have a full bar and a night without any plans. That calls for getting drunk enough to not remember half the shit we talk about. Right?