Chapter 3: Single Motherhood Is a Statistic (III)
"Well spank me purple!" Yondu said and what was he saying!? "If I didn't know better I'd'a said that there's one o'them Spartax thugs!"
"Peter," Jason Quill asked, his terse voice completely at odds with how carefully he laid his hand on his head and his cape over the entirety of him. "You with me, boy?"
… Did he mean it wasn't just Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude that was bubbling up from his subconscious? Wait! That's it! He had also created an idealised version of his old man as a way to expose his issues from having been entirely deprived of father figures worth a damn! "…I'm definitely starting to get a hand of this dream vision thing," Star-Lord bumbled woozily, trying and failing to sit up. Then he giggled suddenly. He couldn't help himself. "And that's a fact!"
"Hellooo the shield wall!" Yondu cawed something or other. "I don' s'pose we can settle this here thing like two proper bizfolk."
Peter snickered and giggled yet more. Hysterically. He didn't understand jack shit but he bet it was funny.
"I'll take that as a no," grandpa muttered.
"I gots me one good, long history in creative contract reinterpretation, if you get me meaning," the pirate was still talking. "Why, there ain't never been a case where everyone who left after a conflict of interests weren't 100% satisfied with my results."
"You can leave warm or I can make you leave cold," Jason Quill said. Flatly. Coldly. "I will, indeed, be satisfied with either those results." It was as if space Spartan grandpa and his politically incorrect grandpa were completely different people and wow, subconscious, you're a genius! Even the way he visibly had to force himself from shutting his eyes in cringe was exactly what Peter would have expected this super grandpa to do when his mouth ran away from him like it was doing right now. He's perfect!
"You see, friend, that there's called an impasse," Yondu said as his arrow hovered next to him. It twitched occasionally, betraying his unease. "Here I be, offering parlay when it's already been tossed in my face once!" The Ravagers left made noises of agreement, even as they did not slacken the grips on their guns one bit. "And you cannae even be bothered to stick a head outta from 'hind that picket fence."
Yondu Udonta was talking. A lot. That meant he was either stalling for a getaway or stalling for an inbound upturn of the situation via adapted contingency. The former was something he'd just refused. The latter was…
~I'll just stay a victim if I can for sure~
"Well lookie here," hollered Horuz from behind them. "Captain! Dare I say these here strumpets be what we call leverage out in the wider world?"
The vid feed on the inner shield changed to a rear view of whatever camera Jason Quill had on the back of his helmet or someplace. Was it hidden in that huge crest or something? The joke was on Peter though, when the image cleared. The moment it did, the boy froze in actual fear and grandpa's face went white as if it'd just been bleached.
Horuz. Gef. Retch. The three stooges. Manhandling his mama. And grandma. Dragged them out of the house by broken dress straps and their hair.
The world was still awash with fairy lights and the stars danced weirdly up in the sky. But despite all that, Peter Quill's mood went as cold as his grandpa's did. Suddenly the dream wasn't that good. No no indeed.
"Alright… New terms then." Jason Quill slowly stood up and turned until he could track both situations from the corners of his eyes, even as he kept the shield between Peter and everyone else. "You can leave warm or in pieces that I cut off you lot one by one while you're still alive."
"Hahaha!" Yondu laughed."Check out this here second total failure at parlay! As if we all cannae tell who's it that's got the high ground now." The pirate sauntered on over to mama and grandma like his grandpa wasn't holding a blasting spear aimed right at his head the whole time. "Seems to me like we're 'bout to have a nice negotiation when there ain't no certain parties in a poz of strength, am I right boys?"
"Hoo-ah!"
"'Ere's how this here'll be," Yondu dictated. There was nothing else to call it when his tone turned like that. "You stop pretendin' like y'all have any more control 'n me over this here predicament." Yondu then shoved his gun under his stoned-out mama's chin. "I stop acting like I think you're some random Sparthug instead of some special snowflake that done deserted and eloped to the asshole of another galaxy." The Centaurian grabbed his mama by the chin none too gently then, looking at her face. "Not that I can relate any, what with a gal as plain as this as the port for yer sparkplug if you follow me, but to each 'is own I s'pose."
Grandpa stiffened with rage that visibly poured out of him. Literally. Peter could see it like he could see everywhere he glowed with light and everywhere he didn't within half a mile. On the other side of the yard from them, Yondu Udonta jerked his gun against mama's throat and smirked confidently. Because whatever else the pirate was, the thing about Stockholm Syndrome is that it never takes with even the best and worst of tyrants if they don't have style.
The moment loomed before him. Fast as Yondu's mood swings. Slower than a full turn of the world. Peter still hadn't understood a word of what the Ravager had said, but he could guess what he was going to say and do next pretty damn well.
Give up the brat or we'll off the little lady.
"Give up the brat or we'll off the little lady." A short whistle from the corner of his mouth had the Yaka arrow hovering tip-first right by mama's eye.
Back off and he might let her live.
"Back off and I might let 'er live."
After that, stand back and don't meddle more in our business and we might let the old broad behind when we leave.
"Ya'll stand back now and not meddle more 'n our business and we might leave the old fish here before we're on our way."
Now that we've established where things stand, I'm willing to entertain offerings in exchange for benefits.
"Now that you 'n me know where we both stand, I'm makin' meself open to offerin's in exchange for boons and the like. Aren't I grand?"
You can start with yourself, rich boy, and what all of that fancy shit you're wearing you're ready to sell.
"You can start off with yerself, rich boy, and what all you're ready to sell o' that fancy shit you're wearin.' My advice? If you're any particular hotshot you tell me right quick. If'n you got a proper 'nough bounty, there might just be in it for you somethin' approaching term flexibility."
The moment loomed and Peter Jason Quill pondered pasts and presents. Young or old, free or slave, things always seemed to wind up the same. He could guess what had been said. He knew what he would do. He knew what he would say.
Jason Quill, though, didn't. "So what you're saying," grandpa instead said lowly. Slowly. "Is that I have everything to lose and not even what's mine to gain." Perfect badass grandad say what now? "What you're saying," Jason Quill added when no answer was forthcoming. "Is that you want there to be nothing between you and me except revenge."
Jason Quill spoke lowly. Slowly. Feeling every bit like the opposite to what the light and mild Peter was feeling that was his.
Absolutely murderous.
"Interesting thing about all things that be," Inner Wizard Wise Guy said then, tapping Peter on the forehead with one hand and plucking at the afterimages of the Yaka arrow with another. The memory of its flight path glimmered into view mid-way through vibrating its way out of existence as though it were a musical string dissolving in the wind. "They witness all things that were and remember." A musical string that contained the memory of everything through which it moved. And why. And how. "Now you begin to understand me."
The itching that had gradually mounted behind his eyes engulfed his entire head, his neck, his spine, his limbs, his gut and all the way to the ends of his feet and arms, until he even itched all over and through everything that wasn't part and parcel of everything aforementioned.
And so the moment loomed before him until it suddenly didn't.
Grandpa's feet shifted in prep of a charge. The Ravagers put up their guns. Yondu's lips curled down in puffed up frustration. And one eight-year-old boy named Peter Jason Quill hummed in on the pulses oscillating in and out of a head crest and whistled.
Yondu Udonta heaved.
Then the Centaurian pirate wheezed through a punctured throat, fell to his knees with the most bewildered look on his face, then toppled forward dead with the universe's most confused death rattle, crest arrow controller sparking uselessly from a hole blown wide.
The Ravagers stared in shock. Those still surviving anyhow, which suddenly got fewer by another pair. The two manhandling his mama and grandma suddenly fell all over them with holes shot through their throats when he went on whistling.
Served them damn right, fucking sons of bitches.
"G-Get'em! Kill everyone!" hollered the one farthest. Halfnut. He shot at Peter. And he didn't miss.
But Grandpa didn't miss either when he blocked with his shield. He also didn't miss when he whirled around him and flourished his half-cape over Peter like a protective field. The lattice-weave locked tight and intercepted whatever blaster fire his shield wasn't there to turn aside, scorching, burning and tearing but deflecting all harm away until Peter stopped whistling.
The last of the Ravagers that had touched down on the world fell over with his head sporting an all-new prick. The prick. That left just the one guarding the M-ship, so Peter breathed in and whistled low and long.
The Yaka arrow shot at the ship's ramp, flew up and in, dodged every last port and bend, drove straight through the single blast doors it couldn't, and finally took out Tullk's right eye along with his life, such as it was.
He could have driven it through the transpari-screen right into the bridge, but he'd never been so well off that he would so lightly choose to damage salvaged finds.
One last time, Star-Lord breathed in and whistled low and long.
The implausibly powerful arrow of his erstwhile abductor yet-to-be flew back the way it went until it stopped in front of Jason Quill. The man who was astonished and shocked but not stunned and certainly not diminished in caution or protectiveness. He did not budge from the arrow's path. Not when it flew at him and not when it stopped.
It was just as well. He'd made his point, Peter dared say.
His whistling tapered off and the arrow fell to the ground, motionless.
Boy but did these post-death dream ghosts behave realistically. Even Yondu in all his patronising self-assurance that never left him even when he was just faking till he made it.
"Now I'm starting to wonder if I've been given something with my drink," Jason Quill muttered as he got to his feet. He looked down to him though. "Peter. What the hell was that, boy?"
Excuse him? He wasn't the one with the cliché trap door and stash full of all the fancy goods of his secret alien identity.
But the man had just fought for him and risked his life for him and killed for him, so whatever. "Yondu Udonta dying a virgin." The boy replied, scratching his left arm – the only part of his body not scraped or smudged somehow – in a vain attempt to make the tingling stop. "Not that he never got any, because pirate don't you know. And sometimes he even paid for it! But his girls, man, they were always so basic that if you dropped even one of them in acid, it'd simply balance the pH." He was actually proud of that burn. And to think he'd never thought he'd get to say it!
Steal from a guy, kick him when he's down, then kill him and insult his manhood just to be sure. All hail the Ravager code! Or a joke version of it anyway. Maybe.
Grandpa shook his head. "Where even are you now, boy?" But then the man knelt and hugged him, long and full and enveloping. It sent him on really long and brief trips through time and stars that weren't his. And when the man stood again, he didn't let him go and instead carried him to his woozy mama and wincing grandma. Even then he didn't put him down, though, moving Peter to sit on the crook of his arm instead.
That was just as well too. Getting such an intimate view of that high-tech and probably ceremonial battle armor was more than enough treat to appease whatever boyish embarrassment he was too stoned out of his mind to remember he should be feeling. He even got a close-up look at the helmet unfolding from his head and turning into a mantle over his shoulders and upper chest.
"Like mother like daughter," grandma said as grandpa kicked big, thick and peanut-brained off of her. "And now like mother like son, looks like. I guess we're all of us forever doomed to get involved with them space man, and that's a fact."
Possibly-not-as-sane-as-he-thought-she-was normie grandma said what now?
But nobody answered his question – he had said it out loud, right? Right? – because grandpa finally put him down – too bad, it felt kind of nice – and then was too busy gathering mom off the lawn and carrying her back in the house to talk to him. At least other than to reluctantly hand him the Yaka arrow when mom was tucked back in bed where she could be safe and stoned for however long.
"Peter," grandpa said, slowly as if trying to get a simple concept through to the dumbest kid in the cluster. So cool! "I have some cleanup to see to. I have no choice but to trust you to keep mama and grandma safe. You'll do it, won't you?"
"Sure grandpa," said Star-Lord to the ultimate vindication of every last bit of hate he felt towards his daddy issues and then some. "You can count on me!"
"I really can't," said implausible space Spartan granddaddy. Which hey, rude, but it's not like he wasn't high out of his mind so okay. And dead, can't forget that. Besides, reassuring his delusions was basically the same thing as reassuring himself, wasn't it?
The rest of the hour leading up to dawn, Jason Quill spent looking all through the ship until he found the location remitter. Then he unbolted, unwound and cut out the bulky machine, stuffed it in the explora-pod along with all the alien corpses – stripped of all the loot of course – and sent the whole bunch off into the far reaches of space. Peter watched it all through the window while finger-spinning the Yaka arrow in increasingly complex ways. He'd normally be ashamed to admit how many hours and days he wasted practicing for it with random sticks, back when he started getting his first solo assignments. But he was high as a kite and dead besides, so he wasn't shy about it no more. Not even when it was grandma asking.
The weird faces she made at his answers were worth their weight in units too, he must say. And that was really weird of her, because who was it that had married the guy with the cliché secret stash in the barn stuffed with alien artefacts from a mysterious past? Granted, seeing as this was all a dying delusion of his, the obvious answer was obvious, but it was the principle of the thing. This dream-whatsit was anal enough to make him unable to understand alien languages but had trouble reacting as it should to this of all things?
How long until it all ends again?
As if summoned by the question, Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude stepped into view from behind him – where he hadn't had any issue seeing him thanks to the astral body's magical 360 degrees magic vision of magic or whatsit – and motioned him to follow.
Well shucks. Just because he was wondering when it'll all be over didn't mean he wanted this cool dream to be over.
Oh well.
Mama was still not coherent enough to question her newfound health but fixated enough on her baby to want to follow regardless. Grandma, to the shock of precisely no one, decided it would be a great idea to help her uncoordinated daughter hobble after him and on. A weak, recently dying woman supported by the fragile, only slightly less feeble older woman that seemed to conveniently forget she could barely lift a wine bottle without wincing most days. These women, honestly, it was a good thing the sickroom wasn't upstairs or dying wouldn't need to involve marauding alien pirates from outer space.
What exactly was this part of his dying delusion supposed to teach him about him?
Oh well.
He followed his Asian Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude out of home and hearth into the breaking dawn, then off on his recently travelled path across the field on the way to passing just shy of the M-ship itself. And his grandpa, who came down the ramp just as he sauntered vaguely by.
He did a double take. "Peter!? Gods dammit boy, are you still high? Where the heck do you think you're tripping off to now?"
The man then rushed after him as if he could actually join him on The Path and grabbed him by the shoulder from behind, bringing him to a halt. "Dammit, boy, don't you go wandering off! I'll drag you to your room and tie you to the bedpost, don't think I won't."
In front of him, Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude took a few more steps, turned around, pointed back with his cane and spun it around.
Sparks from nowehere cut a hole in the air and sheared it larger and wider until it was big enough for all four of them to walk onto a mountain plateau a couple continents over.
"My name is Yao," Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude stood in the flesh and spoke to his grandpa. Not to him but his grandpa. "I would like to extend you and yours an invitation to join me at my estate for a year and a day."
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