Softie

softie

Even more doodles about Peter's interactions with the Ravagers during his time growing up on the Eclector.

Not everyone there has crossed the young boy's way with kindness but those who did were definitely 'Yondu's inner circle', say Oblo, Kraglin, Tullk, Gef and the captain himself. (we all know those guys liked Peter more than they'd admit... :D)

And in this I emphasized their height difference to the boy by different hand movements AND got to practice drawing hands in various positions, for example Yondu proudly ruffling Peter's hair, Oblo playing and fooling around with the kid and nice Ravagers putting their arm on his shoulder. (it all just comes down to nice little details like this :3)

The Bite

Anyone remembers that gory scene in Stranger Things 3 where Jonathan cuts into Eleven's leg with a burning knife? This but with Peter & Yondu :D

CW: Blood, Gore, Whump, Child whumpee, Open wound

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It all didn’t exactly go the way it was planned. Not only that the stuff the Ravagers wanted to get for their own, was guarded by some tentacle alien monsters but also that they were outnumbered and thus had no chance against them.

More risk, more fun, Peter guessed when they were attacked by the critters that weren’t really satisfied with someone entering their nest.

The things weren’t too nice to look at. They appeared like huge spiders, only with living tentacles and faceless. Instead, they had wide open mouths with hundreds of sharp teeth. 

Pure nightmare fuel. 

But Peter tried to play it cool, acting all brave and 'manly' in front of the Ravagers, especially Yondu. 

He wasn't a little kid anymore, no, he's twelve now! 

Which means, he'll soon be old enough to fly the Milano all by himself, without Yondu or Kraglin or Tullk looking over his shoulder.

And although he still suffered from terrible nightmares, the boy hid his fears from the Ravagers. Or else they would never take him seriously if he would start talking about it and make it obvious that he was afraid of every mission. 

So Peter held his small blasters in his hand, shooting one of the beasts in the head as it was about to attack Gef. He's gotten a lot better since his training with Yondu and today would be the day where he could show him what he learned. 

"Cap'n, 's too many of 'em!" Oblo shouted to Yondu while fighting the alien monsters. 

Not even the skilled Ravager captain's arrow could kill all of them as they kept splitting into more over and over again, making it almost impossible for the others to defend themselves. 

"Gef, Tullk! Go get 'm ships ready for backin' off!" Yondu ordered, killing the thing in front of him with one whistle. "Kraglin, Peter, yer comin' with me!" 

"Yes sir!" 

Peter briefly glanced over to the others when, in this moment of distraction, one of the monsters knocked him over by stabbing a tentacle right into his left leg. The boy squinted his teeth in pain as the thing pulled him by his leg. It felt just like someone had rammed many knife blades into his skin, all at the same time. But to his luck, Oblo was there and cut through the tentacle, so that it let go off Peter’s leg. 

The part that got stuck in his leg, was still moving in an ache until he had pulled it out in an instant, letting out a shriek as he did so. The boy felt warm blood running down his leg underneath his dark leather pants while the wound started to sting. 

But the kid had pulled himself up and continued to shoot the monsters to help the others, trying to ignore the awful pain.

Kraglin, seeing the blood streaming down his leg, shouted over to him.

"Quill! Ya losin' blood!"

The Xandarian came over to the boy who stood there on shaky legs trying to still fight although every further step hurt even more. 

But the boy immediately waved off. "I-it's nothing! Just a small scratch!" He panted, his heart hammering in his chest.

Kraglin raised an eyebrow in disbelief but at the same time, he didn’t really have the time to ask himself about the kid's strange behavior. Soon, the hopeless situation came to an end. The Ravagers fled back to their ships, leaving the loot behind. 

"Hey, we're headin' off!" Peter heard one of the Ravagers yell as he was also making his way to the M-ship standing in the woods nearby. 

Of course, running with the wounded leg wasn’t that pleasant but in the last seconds the boy had made his way to the ship as few of the men had pulled him inside before the hatch closed. Peter held himself up to one of the rocket seats, almost losing balance when the ship left the planet behind. From second to second his breathing became heavier, his leg was burning. 

"Damn it! We was so close!" Peter heard one of the Ravagers complain about the failed mission. The man gnashed his teeth in anger. 

They all stood in the ship’s cockpit, heavily breathing. Right after, another snapped back, turning with a scowled face.

"Yeah, if ya ain’t lazed away that one transmitter, buttock!" 

"Ugh, shut'cher mouth, Halfnut! Ye ain't allowed sayin' anythin' after 'em last job on Contraxia!" 

The rest of the conversation Peter didn’t notice. His head suddenly got dizzy and he felt like everything was spinning around him. The boy tried to walk towards the exit of the cockpit while he only heard a ringing sound in his ears along with his own heavy breathing. Trying to look up to the lights on the ship’s ceiling, he saw them spinning before his eyes when his vision became blurry. 

In the distance, he only heard muffled talking from the others.

 "...'s up...with 'm?" 

Peter closed his eyes before he fainted, losing his balance. 

Only a few minutes passed when the boy had slowly gained back his eyesight. The first thing he saw was the blurred face of Kraglin, who called his name, slightly smacking his cheek so that he would return to reality. 

"Hey, Pete!"

Peter blinked his eyes, trying to understand what happened to him. As his consciousness kicked in again, he felt such a tormenting pain from his wounded leg which he had never experienced before. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a cry in pain. 

"Pete, what's wrong?!" Kraglin repeated in shock with widened eyes, staring at the kid, whose head he had shored on his knees.

In an instant, his glance fell on Peter's leg, where his dark pants were covered in dried blood. Slightly, he shoved up the fabric so that he could look at the wound. And to his horror, the wound wasn’t only infected and suppurated but swollen and it looked like something was moving underneath the skin. Everyone else standing beside seeing this was flinching back and gritting their teeth in disgust. 

"Oh shit!"

Peter lifted up his head a bit to look at the wound himself when he saw what made the others gagging. He screwed up his face in terror of what he was looking at while at the same time, the pain was still unbearable.

"'s that yer small scratch?" Kraglin frowned with a bit of sarcasm in his voice.

The boy ignored the comment, as he still stared at the wound with widened eyes, whimpering, pressing his lips together. Eventually, Yondu pushed away the others blocking the way while hissing at them.

"Out of the way!"

He hesitated when he saw the Terran laying there with tears running down his cheeks. Glancing at the wound the captain knew what to do immediately. In the same moment, he remembered the story about the same parasite monsters he used to scare the boy with when he didn't want to sleep. How ironic.

"Kraglin, keep 'm awake!" The Centaurian hollered, rushing to the back of the ship. 

Kraglin briefly looked up to his captain, then again turned back to Peter as ordered. He placed both hands on the boy's cheeks in tension about the whole situation. 

"Okay, kid, stay 'ere! Hey, look at me! Don't'cha close yer eyes, ye hear me?!" He sputtered nervously, moving Peter’s head while his eyelids became heavier from every second passing. 

In the meantime, Yondu went to the makeshift 'kitchen' of the small ship, which consisted only of a few drawers full of cutlery. He opened them in a rush, searching for something useful like a knife. In it, he finally found a huge one, holding the tip over the flame of a burner. Finally, the Centaurian took an old towel, ripping off a piece of it. 

Coming back to the cockpit with the knife and cloth, Yondu said to Peter briefly, "This'll gonna hurt as hell now, boy. 'ere, bite on that." 

He kneeled beside the terrified child and put the piece of cloth between Peter's teeth so that it would prevent him from screaming, because what now would follow, would be awfully painful. And although the Centaurian would really like to renounce doing that, it was the only way to save Peter’s life. He took the knife into one hand and looked at the Terran, who stared at him with widened eyes, clenching his jaw to bite on the piece of cloth. 

Without further ado, Yondu then started cutting with the burning knife into the flesh where the thing was moving. Blood and pus flowed out of the infected wound and Peter’s jaw tightened even more, he shut his eyes while he was screaming in pain, what through the rag in his mouth sounded more like a loud whine. 

The pain was so unbearable, that the poor boy was squirming and wailing but Kraglin held him tight in his grip. Every second felt like an entirety, pure torture. After the cut, now followed something more grievous than it already was. So Yondu didn’t hesitate to not torment Peter even more. The Centaurian reached his hand into the opened cut, to take out the parasite, making the Terran shriek louder while his eyes were flooded with tears. Yet, he didn’t dare to look, what, for his own sake, probably was better. 

"Just 'bout havin' it! Keep 'm still!" The captain growled to Kraglin, who tried to prevent Peter from moving around during the process. 

The Centaurian clenched his teeth and dug deeper into the wound, until he finally grabbed the slimy disgusting thing and tore it out of Peter’s leg. Throwing it away, the crowd of Ravagers behind them stepped aside in fear mixed with disgust of what they just witnessed. Peter tore the cloth out of his mouth, heavily breathing and crying when it was finally over.

"Hey, ya did it, Pete. It’s over." Kraglin said softly to him, placing a hand on the boy's back to calm him down.

Yondu put away the blood soaked knife and sighed in relief while more blood ran down his left hand. 

Just in time, he thought. Any moments later and he would’ve lost the boy.  

"That'll leave one huge scar, boy." Yondu said after he was finished bandaging Peter’s leg and knotted it up all tightly. 

The boy let out a small whimper and flinched as it still hurt but kept himself from crying. He didn't even shed another tear as the Centaurian had cleaned the wound with some alcohol, bravely swallowing his pain.

"But scars are cool, aren’t they?" Peter raised his head to look into the man's face. "They make me a real Ravager now!" 

Yondu snickered softly about the boy's words, tapping his blue fingers on Peter's leg. He grinned slightly at the kid, but instead of answering his question, he took him to task.

"Now ya tell me what'chu were plannin' with this." 

Peter felt his stomach tighten. He probably meant his behavior down there on the planet, Kraglin had told him for sure about that. 

"Why didn't 'cha tell Kraglin ye was wounded, heh?" Yondu dug deeper, sensing that Peter felt more uncomfortable now. He raised an eyebrow, expecting an answer. "So?" 

The boy gulbed, trying to avoid the captain's piercing look on him. Peter looked down, nervously fiddling his fingers. 

"I...uhm, I didn't want the others to know..." He mumbled under his breath, still with his head downcast. "Halfnut and Taserface just would've laughed at me again..." 

Great, now he could forget about flying the Milano for sure, Peter thought, ready for every punishment Yondu was about to give him. But then the boy felt a finger tucking under his chin, raising it and his eyes met the Centaurian's again. 

"Boy" Yondu said gently "Ya shouldn't listen to these jerks out there, they don't know shit. What'chu did was hella dangerous and stupid, ye could've died if I ain't saved ya." 

Peter opened his mouth but closed it again as the Ravager gave him a warning look. That's it, there comes his lecture about how he screwed up, he thought. 

"But ya also did good down there." 

Huh? Did he just praise him?

"I did... good?" Peter repeated in disbelief. 

"Don't 'chu think I ain't seen ya shootin' these parasites." Yondu smiled, pointing at his leg. "An' as for this, ya was really brave, boy. Had one of 'em too, when I was a young lad. And if my captain then ain't come to save me, I wouldn't be alive t'day. See?" 

The Centaurian shoved up his sleeve to reveal a long scar on his blue forearm, a similar one to Peter's. The boy gasped in surprise, realizing that the Ravager captain had been through the same pain as him. Still, it's weird to be praised when you expect to be scolded and such praise coming from Yondu is even weirder.

"So you're not mad?" Peter asked carefully, to make sure that there was not anything else behind all of this. Yondu was very unpredictable when it came down to things like these. 

But the Ravager just chuckled, ruffling Peter's hair. 

"I ain't, boy. But don't 'cha get used to it, yer lucky I'm in such a good mood today!" 

A little giggle escaped the boy's throat as the Centaurian stood up, making his way to the door of Peter's quartier. Outside in the hallway the boy already heard him yelling at his crew for screwing up the job and Peter could help but grin as Yondu returned back to his usual tough demeanor as Ravager captain.

But sometimes, in moments like these, he knew that there's this other side of him, a way softer one only Peter gets to see.

Gravity Balls

Pines! Pines! Pines!

I just wanted to draw them all bonding :3

if y’all see this floating around: yes, it’s from me, and yes, you can find the original post on hoyolab under the same user <3