InsaneJournal

WHO: Yondu Udonta & Peter Quill
WHERE: Yondu's spare room
WHEN: (backdated) January 31
WHAT: Peter and Yondu clean out Yondu's spare room and get distracted by the past and feelings.
WARNINGS: Language, as always
STATUS: Complete.



For the last month, Peter had been sleeping on the couch in the living room, which wasn’t too bad really. It was better than prison, anyways. At least he had a blanket (or two), a pillow, and more often than not, he fell asleep watching Judge Judy or something equally ironic. So when Yondu barked an order to follow him into the spare room, Peter went.

“Holy shit, remind me to call Hoarders.” The spare room wasn’t that bad, but it did have a large amount of ...stuff. Peter was a little surprised that Yondu was letting him touch all of Yondu’s things. Maybe Peter had earned some trust? Nah. Yondu probably just wanted to order Peter around and stand and watch. That made more sense.

Scratching his head, Peter glanced at Yondu for an idea of where to start, which appeared to be the closet. Boxes were stacked high and he sighed. “I’m not going to find your dildo collection or something, am I? Because I don’t need to start going to a therapist too.”

Yondu laughed, because, honestly, that was the same sort of stupid smartass thing Peter would have said in the dreams and of all things last night he’d had a few repeat ones of his adventures with him in their thieving days. “You got problems, kid.” He clapped a hand on his shoulder and then handed him one of those collapsible footstools. “And to put your precious mind at ease, I ain’t got none of that junk. Who needs any of that when the ladies got me?” He spread his arms wide and grinned equally as so, before turning to Peter’s antiquated iPod. It sat on an upturned waste paper basket sitting in a speaker holder made for it - a recent garage sale acquisition. He didn’t understand any of the playlists he had on there and so just picked one at random, and hit play. ‘YMCA’ started playing and an eyebrow went up. “Seriously?!” he yelled over the noise. He fumbled with the dial a minute before managing to skip to the next song. He didn’t immediately recognize it and set the thing down. Moving over to a pile of boxes by the door to the room he said, “Boy, sometimes I wonder about you.”

Peter actually regretted mentioning sex around Yondu because now he had mental images and dear god, he didn’t need that. “I wonder about you too. Like when are you going to die already, since you’re so fucking old.”

Reaching up, he decided to start with the first box, and opening it, he raised an eyebrow. It looked like old clothes, nothing worth saving. “Making executive decisions, by the way. You just gave me free reign to snoop and nothing’s going to stop me now.” Maybe that would motivate Yondu to put a plan into place. Yondu had always made fun of Peter for keeping worthless junk, but Yondu wasn’t much better.

Yondu just snorted at Peter’s sass as he hauled down a box from the stack and set it on the floor. Opening it he pawed through the jumbled mess of old manuals, books, and a few CDs in their jewel cases. He procured the CDs and set them aside. Music was always worth keeping, something he knew he and Peter had in common. Yondu planted his foot against the side of the box and sent it sliding out the doorway with a hard shove. “Only one around here makin’ executive decisions around here, boy, is me. You just holler whatever it is you find in them boxes.” Yondu cast a look over his shoulder at Peter to let him know he meant it. Sure most of this stuff was junk, but he knew there were certain things worth keeping in here; he just hadn’t made the time to sort it all out.

Which reminded him. “By the way, once we’re done here, at some point we gotta take care of your shit in that unit you got.”


Elton John started to play, singing about crocodiles and rock, which had Peter slightly distracted.

“Huh?” Peter looked up from the disturbing box of 90s porn he’d just unearthed. He knew there was some freaky sex stuff in here. “My what now?” Setting that box aside, he re-taped it and with a black Sharpie drew a poison symbol on it before shoving it out as well. No one needed to see that.

He started folding a random pile of blankets that looked older than Yondu before it clicked. “Wait, my unit? Like my storage unit?” Peter couldn’t hide the happiness across his face. “You kept that up? Oh man, I’d hug you but we don’t do that without trying to stab each other first. Fuck, that’s AWESOME.” It wasn’t like there was anything really valuable in there. His comic books, some collectibles. It was more his records -- well, his MOM’s records -- and his photo albums that he was most missing. The rest was just stuff but that? That was priceless.

“How come you didn’t say anything sooner?” The second the question left Peter’s lips, he knew the answer: because Yondu didn’t do a damn thing he didn’t want to do until he wanted to do it. Sigh. Whatever. Peter was still thrilled.

Yondu couldn’t help but smile and chuckle a little at Peter’s excitement. When he had briefly done a once over of Peter’s stuff he knew that letting it go into a dumpster or selling the unit to Storage Wars wasn’t exactly going to happen. Not when he saw Meredith’s records. Sure he could have salvaged those and tossed the rest but a part of him just couldn’t do that to Peter.

“I didn’t say nothin’ cuz I wanted to make sure you were gonna stick around and actually work hard for once.” And so far Peter was making him proud on that end. Not that he’d openly admit it.

He pushed out of the room a box full of random items, not even wanting to bother going through them. He paused at the box with the poison sign and his brow furrowed.

“The hell I just tell you? Let me know what you find, chucklehead. What’s with the poison symbol?”

Peter glared and muttered under his breath. “For once...whatever, old man, and that box? That box IS poison. I told you to warn me about your freaky sex shit.” Actually, from what he could see it was nothing worse than a Hustler or Playboy but Peter was sure that at the bottom? Well, that’s where HE would hide his dirtiest magazines.

Blankets now folded and neatly in a corner (hey, he did have some manners), he turned his attention back to the closet. Grabbing the footstool, he reached up to the top shelf and brought down a box, wrinkling his face at the dust that had accumulated. “Ugh, gross, it’s like I kissed a spider,” he sputtered, using one hand to clear his face. The box didn’t have Yondu’s writing on it though...and it was a scrawl he was familiar with.

Grandpa…

Now he held the box somewhat reverently before setting it down gently and brushing the dust off the box better. Supplies was all it said but that was enough to catch Peter’s breath suddenly. With a steady hand, he opened the box and almost instantly had to blink tears away. His mother’s paint supplies, all of it was in this awkwardly shaped box, put into a closet to collect dust. He could remember laying on the floor of her bedroom, reading comic after comic while she listened to music and painted landscapes. She loved landscapes, loved the peace and tranquility that came with a good scene. They had had many picnics out, while Meredith painted and Peter ran around fields, chasing rabbits or squirrels, climbing trees...sometimes, when he was bored, he would manage to convince her to let him crawl on her lap, and she’d paint around him.

He’d wondered what had happened to her things when she died, but had assumed his grandfather had packed it all up with the pictures and other things he’d shoved in the attic upon Meredith’s death. And yet here it was.

“Why do you have these…”

“My what…?” Yondu was genuinely confused. Pulling out a box cutter from his back pocket he cut open the box to see what the hell Peter was going on about.

He saw the Hustler cover and burst into hearty laughter for several seconds. “Poison! Ha!” He picked up a few copies inspecting the covers as he tried to recover from laughing so hard. “Damn boy, prison turn you into a prude? They're just some old porno mags.” He flipped through one, then another, peeking at centerfolds here and there. “If memory serves, you stole a few once upon a time straight outta my mailbox.” Teenager shenanigans. He'd have whupped Peter with a good old fashioned switch if he'd been his kid. Instead he let it go, not even bothering to tell Peter's Grandfather.

Finding a Playboy, Yondu stopped to unfold the centerfold. Not bad. “C'mon you gonna tell me she's not hot?” He held it out for Peter to see. Granted, the naked woman in a seductive pose all oiled up had the quaffed hair of the 90s, but Yondu had to admit the fold out was still sexy. “Some of these beauties date back to my Marine Corp days. These are vintage now. Maybe I should try my hand at sellin’ em on that ebay thing.”

He continued to go through boxes as Peter focused on the closet, and his back was turned when he heard the question. “Have what…?” He asked as he turned. And stopped short.

He stared at the dusty, faded box, recognizing Gregg's handwriting instantly. He saw brushes and paint inside and knew it was Meredith's paints.

Yondu was silent a long moment. Swallowing hard he said in a much quieter voice. “Put 'em back.”

Vintage porn, Peter had to laugh at himself. Of course, it made him wonder if Yondu had the Pamela Anderson magazine...he’d like to introduce his current girlfriend, Palmela Handerson to her…..but this new box. The atmosphere had changed with opening that box, and he almost felt like things couldn’t be the same again. How could he think about porn when his mother suddenly popped into his mind?

For once, Peter didn’t argue. He closed up the box and almost reverently brushed a hand on top. “She always loved painting,” he said quietly after a moment. “It was her favourite thing to do….”

As much as he loved his mother, he hated being reminded of her, especially out of the blue. He couldn’t help think of what a complete fuck-up he was, a disappointment and probably the worst thing that could have ever happened to her. His grandfather too. It seemed everyone was better off when Peter wasn’t around. And who was the only one who stuck around? Yondu.

About that.

“I started dreaming,” Peter blurted out. “And I know they’re real now. And you know what? In that other dream? You weren’t there. You’ve always been there. There were like ...a few times when I found myself thinking ‘what would yondu do’ and it usually was ‘kick some ass’ or ‘torture the motherfuckers’ or ‘screw ‘em’, all which is ...pretty good life advice, I guess.” He cleared his throat. “Anyways. I don’t want to leak feelings all over the place and all, but when I woke up and heard you snoring? I thought fuck…..I’m glad you’re here.”

Yondu knew he had a bunch of Meredith’s things - if not all of them - from when he’d gone back home for the funeral. Gregg had been so grief stricken that what he hadn’t packed off to Goodwill he’d suddenly offered to Yondu. He’d taken what could fit in his truck at the time (thank God he’d had a big old pickup back then) and put it in storage until he’d finished his time in the Marines. When he moved, he’d just taken it all with him, not even bothering to go through anything. It was just too hard, even after all this time.

“Yeah.” was all he could muster in terms of words at Peter’s observation. But Yondu couldn’t get much more out than that; he’d tell the kid later that the framed watercolor of the field and barn in the kitchen was his mother’s gift to him when he was still serving in the military.

Yondu started to turn to get back to work to avoid having to talk about her further, when Peter started talking about the dreams.

It was not what he had been expecting. Peter was dreaming about life after Yondu had died, something he had wondered at but figured would come about with time. Not like this, so soon, with the dreams clearly out of order. He wasn’t sure if ‘gone’ was simply absent to Peter or dead as a doornail, and really didn’t want to ask.

But it was what Peter said last that gut punched him with a fresh wave of emotions on top of the ones about Meredith. He was missed.

Yondu didn’t know what to do. Leave the room, the pretext to get a beer? Take a piss? Walk the dog? He could feel the tears pricking the corners of his eyes. Dammit! He struggled in silence a moment longer, staring at a very interesting invisible spot on the opposite wall.

“Shit.” he growled, and stomped over to Peter, pulling him into a tight bear hug. It was brief, but it was solid. He then pushed away from him and ruffled Peter’s hair with a single hard swipe. “Ain’t goin’ nowhere, kid. Now get back to work, enough yappin’.” He turned away so Peter couldn’t see the tears in his eyes, or the fact that the forearm he wiped across his face was to get rid of said tears instead of wiping non-existent sweat off his brow.

The hug surprised Peter initially and by the time he got over it and was hugging back, Yondu had pushed him away. It wasn’t anything different than what usually happened between them. What was different was Yondu’s reaction. Usually it was Peter who teared up, Peter who was being told to suck it up. Instead of commenting though, he just gave a small smile and focused back on the task at hand.

“I kinda don’t wanna go nowhere either, Yondu.” Peter was staring at another box, nothing really in it but books, trying to focus his thoughts. “I mean. Not kind of. I don’t. I know it’s only been a month or so but ...it feels different this time. Being here. With you around and all. So. If you’re cool with me staying on, I’m cool with staying….and I’m working now, hey. Doing good with that, I can give you some cash. I mean, it’s not much but it’s something, since I really do appreciate this, man.” The last little bit rushed out and left him feeling deflated. It had been on his mind for a while, so when he saw Yondu’s show of emotion...well, it triggered Peter to get it out there.

If 16 year old Peter could see this now, he’d probably wonder what the fuck had happened. Prison. Prison happened. And it taught Peter a lesson in humility that he wasn’t about to forget. Sure, he was still that cocky, self-assured asshole, but peel away that layer and there was a decent human being in there. He hoped Yondu saw it sometimes.

It was different because Yondu was different. The dreams had changed him in many ways, but most of all it had changed his perspective. Dying will do that to you. Especially when it's in front of your surrogate son.

As Peter prattled on Yondu wasn't sure how much more he could take of this. Where was that damn rodent - Rocket - when he needed him? Now would have been a perfect time for his offensive sass. Instead, music from the ipod filled in the silence between them.

“Yeah, well….” He mumbled. The next words were hard to get out but somehow he managed. “Glad you're here.” After a moment of silence he then added. “First rent payment'll be due Friday. Seein’ as you're workin’ and all.”

That was the Yondu Peter was expecting, so Peter nodded. He was surprised there wasn’t an itemized list actually, including ‘air’ and a cost to it. He’d take rent money. That was fine. He’d also take the guff the old man kept giving him because --

-- hey wait, was this Alanis? Peeking a glance at Yondu, he noticed the older man was distracted so Peter snuck over to his iPod and blared the music. There was nothing quite like getting over an awkward moment like Peter singing some angry rock chick music.

“It’s like raaaaaaiiinnnnnn, on your wedding day….a freeee liiiinnneee, when you’re already paidd…. ” Cue full blown singing into the broom like a mic, sweeping away any trace at all of good feelings and emotions because that was how Peter rolled.

Yondu nearly jumped out of his skin as some old 90s song he forgot existed suddenly blared, filling the room with noise...and Peter's ridiculous falsetto.

“Makin’ me regret this already,” he mumbled to himself with a smile, watching Peter going all out like a fool. Of course, that was the farthest thing from the truth. Yondu couldn't have asked for anything better.