InsaneJournal

Who: Drax and Mantis
What: Bleedovers!
When: Friday night, during the storm.
Rating/Warning: Green.



Like most tales set to an ominous tone, this one begins with the token phrase: It was a dark and dreary night.

In the early morning hours, there was a flash of white that lit up the Guardian's living room, followed by the crack of thunder. Oblivious to any weather related incidents - even though he would claim to leap up at the slightest sound of danger - Drax was asleep on the couch. The couch that was overly comfortable to the point of too much squishiness, and was as soft in texture as the fuzziest, cuddliest beast. It was not as comfortable as his sparse bed on the Benatar, which was about as comfortable as sleeping on a plank. He liked that plank. It offered firm back support, and if a warrior needed one thing? It was firm back support.

One wouldn't know that though, by the faint sound of snoring from his wide open mouth.

Mantis was draped over the back of the couch, like she had been since she got here. Her own little dreams were floating through her head. Though it was hard not to have them, when you were an empath. In her dreams, they were back on board. Going out on a distress signal, when they were touched by an angel. A very manly angel with one eye. Drax was right, he was very handsome. Way better looking than Drax or Peter.

What followed next was something complicated and strange. Rocket and Groot leaving with Thor. The rest heading off to Knowhere? There was something wrong with Gamora too. She was sad and frightened. And as the dream came to a close, she gasped with a surprise, promptly falling off the back of the couch and onto the floor with a thud.

Why was he having a dream about being held at big gunpoint by a man older than Quill, asking who Gamora was. This must have been a game of some sort. One that Drax new he was smart enough to win, after having been turned to puzzle blocks and disassembled.

The thunk caused him to roll onto his side, one arm and one leg hanging off the couch onto the floor.

"I'll do YOU one better, why is Gamora?!" Drax suddenly yelled out loud in his sleep.

Things moved so quickly. A large purple man of immense power. The golden glove he wore. A great battle that - unbeknownst to him - caused his limbs to twitch and move around, until he too landed with a thud on the floor, waking up as the lightning illuminated the room.

Drax leaped up to his feet, looking ready to fight. As for his foe, that disclosure came soon enough as he saw Mantis on the floor and bent down to tell her, "Mantis. The distinguished magic man was wearing the blanket of death."

At least the sensation of unraveling like a string had stopped. It had happened when they first encountered the purple man. He had barely raised his hands and she was undone, like she wasn’t a person any more. Now she was just rubbing her head and her butt and trying to figure out what the heck was going on. She heard Drax shout and then there was a loud thump.

Slowly crawling around to the front, Mantis’ eyes were huge. “Drax! Did you dream of the large purple man with the horrible chin? It looked like a wrinkly prune.” Or worse. Some old man balls. Ugh. She’d gotten that term from Rocket, when he used to ask her about her time with Peter’s father. He had some wrinkle old man balls. Gross.

"It did. Like a Kavrya prune, dried for ten years." They were a delicacy throughout the galaxy. Purple, wrinkly, with the skin like leather and the flavor of condensed dirty laundry. Drax thought about that for a long moment. "Or balls. Chin balls. That is an odd place for genitalia. Unless their lovers have a chin receptacle of some sort. Then it would make sense. And be oddly beautiful."

Enough imagining that. He helped Mantis up, resting a hand on her shoulder to give her much needed support. She might topple over suddenly and bend her antennae.

"I think the chinese we gorged ourselves on has given us visions," he said. "It might be safer to eat Pringles."

He nodded over at the pile of empty containers, many of which were pizza or cheese flavored.

Her nose wrinkled at the mere thought of all of that. “You are right. I do not like this dream. It felt like .. I..” she swallowed a bit. “He only looked at us and we were gone and then back again and he..” she trailed off as she took Drax’s hand and got to his feet. It meant touching him, though she wasn’t trying to read his emotions. She didn’t need to always feel them.

Mantis nodded her head sadly. “I think you are right. Pringles are better. But… do you really think this purple man is the man who is the father of Gamora? Do you think he is really coming here?”

"I do not know. If he does, we will stop him," was Drax's reply as he patted Mantis on the shoulder before letting his hand drop down to his side again. He never cared if she read him. He was an open book. Far more than Quill was, not even caring about how his father, a planet, impregnated his mother. With an actual penis. It was not a bad question. These were stories to be shared openly, just like tales of battle. "Even if Gamora is his daughter, I will kill Thanos. He will pay for all he has done."

His eyes looked to the window as the sky lit up a bright blue-white, illuminating a churning mass of clouds and full of rumbling noise. He never looked upon anything like this. It was raw and powerful, untamed, and he nodded toward what he was looking at, so that they could both get their minds off a dream that was too real.

Drax was quiet for a long moment, before he spoke again.

"This world is beautiful."

She wished that she could be as confident in their abilities as Drax was. There was a frown on her face and a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “We did not stop him in the dream,” she protested. There was nothing that she wouldn’t do for her friends, but she wasn’t sure that this was going to go the way they thought. Not that she could see the future. “How come we saw.. Or I saw, us but meeting the people from here but we were not here. We were on another planet?”

That was definitely odd. Perhaps they had to figure out where they had been in the dream. “Yes, he will pay for what he has done.” What did he do though? Something bad to Gamora at the very least. Something about this planet? Oh she wished that it was more clear.

She trailed off and went over to the window to stare over at it. “Yes, yes it is. Even if it smells like pee.”

There were no doubts in Drax's mind that Thanos would be defeated. He wasn't yet sure who those faces belonged to in his dreams other than the blanket man, or why they were on a orange planet fighting a purple man with chin balls. It would be discovered in good time.

He moved until he was by his comrade's side, opening the window a crack. The shifting wind blew through in angry puffs and plaintive moans between the buildings, carrying litter and leaves up to the sky and letting them flutter back down again. A long bout of companionable silence settled in as they watched the awe-inspiring storm rage outside.

Another crack of thunder overhead, and Drax drew in a deep, cleansing breath.

He let it out while mumbling, "It does smell like pee."