Give me your hands, I can't leave you behind
He carried that stick to their hotel room like someone was about to steal it. Saw his distorted reflection on the camera stuck to the wall and it shifted like an eye to inspect the four of them - the fifth was in his hand.
They'd been avoiding him ever since Drax had somehow got him to get up on his feet like he was covered in spikes because grief is paralyzing and contagious. It softened their tongues when they had to talk to him, so they chose to talk almost exclusively to one another instead. Gamora had already asked if he was fine two or three times and he didn't answer any, so she eventually gave up.
There were two beds, a dirty mattress on the floor and a hammock held by ropes so thin and shredded the wind could easily slice them in half. The only lamp was yellow and it kept flashing and flashing like it was eager to burst. Even after it wavered for the sixth time, no one asked Rocket to fix it and he didn't offer himself for the job. He was thinking of something else.
He sat on the second bed, his feet dangling above the floor.
Maybe,” he heard Quill complaining, “maybe saving the galaxy isn't that profitable.”
“Would you rather sell the Orb, let Ronan win and have no galaxy?” Gamora asked. Quill didn't agree, but didn't deny it either.
“Fine, sorry I'm so greedy,” he joked, no one laughed and the lights flashed. “Hey, Drax. Ain't you gonna drink?”
Drax got up from somewhere and laid a hand on Rocket's back on his way to their table as kindly as Sire used to do before twisting his organs like balloons for his own good and glanced at them. “Cheap wine does not please my palate.”
“Cheap wine is the most expensive we can afford for a while,” Peter told him, a bottle red as the blood that still trickled down his nose from time to time sweating under his fingers. “They kinda ruined my ship, y'know. Rocket, you want some?”
Rocket didn't answer. Gamora looked up from the only table in the room, where her arms rested against the cold metal, and a pair of silver eyebrows narrowed and wrinkled. “The ship they're fixing for free?”
“Exactly! Ever seen anyone do a good job for free? No, honestly, you think the Nova would ever fix a thief's ship out of the kindness of their hearts? Like, with no traps? I'll be happy if they don't hide a bomb under my bed, or a…”
Rocket blinked in the quivering lights. There was a plant so green and healthy in front of the blank wall, staring at him with spite like thick golden grass in a meadow under the sun, that he wished it was pale and dead.
He had nothing. The bottle someone put in his hand because he was too lethargic to do it himself wasn't a treat from his own money. His four billion units were gone. His only chance to be slightly respected died with Groot. Even the key he still had in his pocket despite it weighing like a grave was made of stolen crap. He had nothing.
He turned the stick over in his hand as if it'd gain consciousness if he was stubborn enough and put the bottle aside when the urge to break it on his own head got too uncontrollable. Tilted his head at that plant and waited for it to grow eyes. He had nothing. His lungs were tight and constricted. There was a plant with vibrant leaves, a pot and humid dirt. He had nothing but a stick.
There was a pot and there was dirt, and he had a stick.
It wasn't dry yet. If there's a possibility, there's no loss. If there's a spark, there's life.
His heart exploded. He'd just got over the shaking almost ten minutes ago and it started again. A euphoric wave of hope gushed from his veins and flooded his neck and shoulders with something hot and numb. A chance is not death. It's something to fix, a goal to chase. Almost a distraction if nothing else. The only thing he's ever had is the need to fix. But he could see Peter glancing at him with the corner of his eye every now and then so he had to wait, because no one was supposed to know. The last time someone found out, he ended up leaving alone with someone's blood under his nails and a grave in his pocket. They'd have to sleep at some point and he could wait. Groot would've waited.
Rocket locked his gaze on the plant like he was trying to melt it with his eyes and his claws scratched at one another to keep his hands from shaking. The lights flashed, their voices were muffled somewhere in the back of his mind and he felt his heart pound in his temples. He had to try. He could fix it.
Quill woke up to Drax's arm smashing his lungs and Gamora's hair on his face. The dim light from the window was a pale blue that made everything look silver.
He sat up and rolled his shoulders to feel his numb arms again. The hammock was empty. The vase and the plant next to the wall were missing.
He found them and Rocket in the bathroom, the floor covered in a layer of leaves and grainy dirt. Rocket was bent over the pot, scratching and digging and panting like a dog. Peter's eyes widened.
“Woah,” he breathed. “The hell you doing?”
Rocket just scratched and dug and wheezed a little harder. His hands sunk into the dirt and pulled out roots and leaves. He was covered in mud, the whole bathroom looked like a garden or a graveyard. Quill leaned over because Rocket wouldn't face him and accidentally saw a stick instead.
“You gonna plant him there?”
Rocket took in a breath his lungs couldn't keep. “No,” he growled, and kept digging and scratching and panting like Sire's face was inside that pot. “I just love to eat dirt.”
“Wait,” Quill narrowed his eyes. “Can you just do that? Like, we could just’ve done that this whole time?”
“I'll find out,” he hissed. His chest was trying to burst.
“Rocket, that's not--”
“He wouldn't leave me behind.”
He could feel Quill's gaze on his back like he was see-through. Like Peter knew everything about the mess of flesh and metal underneath his skin, but couldn't tell if he was staring at him with pity or pleasure and both were equally disgusting and he couldn't elect the most insulting. The difference was barely even there.
“Rocket. That's not gonna work, buddy.”
Rocket stopped digging and scratching, but kept panting. He was breathing fire when he turned to look at Quill, and it was hard to say which parts of his useless ire were anger or fear. “If I still wanted to make sense, I wouldn't’ve joined your fucking club,” he heaved.
Peter just stared, opened his mouth, looked up at the ceiling and mumbled “right” under his breath before turning and leaving. Rocket got what he wanted and scared him away, and yet he didn't feel any satisfaction at all.
But he'd feel something when he was done. That's it, he just needed to fix it. He dug and dug until he couldn't feel his hands and then dug some more. Pulled at the roots with twice the rage from before because they were stealing Groot's water. Shattered leaves and stems like a feral animal because he couldn't have another key in his pocket and another corpse to carry. He couldn't leave another one behind. He couldn't keep losing, he couldn't let anybody else in but he couldn't be alone, he couldn't keep on adding reasons to hate himself, he couldn't let anybody down, he couldn't--
Something knelt next to him and he instinctively backed away until his back hit a wall. He clutched the stick to his chest and stared at Quill like he was about to jump on his throat.
The jackass snickered and showed him a spoon. It sparkled in the dark like water in a cave. “I can't kill you with a spoon, dumbass. Here, that's how you do it.” He buried the spoon into the dirt then took it out, then buried it into the dirt and took it out. Over and over. The roots were coming out naturally. “See? That's how you don't lose a finger . You could've stayed here for a week and it still wouldn't work with your…”
Rocket's ears rang. He stared at Quill like he was a breath away from evaporating because he couldn't be real. No one ever comes back, and he came back to help. Rocket scratched at his arm with bloody nails and his lips trembled. He knew there was only one end and it'd be Peter walking away or becoming another Groot or bleeding out like his friends did, so long ago but not long enough for the blood on his hands to dry off, and then he'd be alone and lose what he never even had. He clenched his fists and pulled at his fur when his claws were too shattered to keep scraping his cheeks. He felt a hot wave of despair bubble up from his insides and burst in his throat. He pulled at his fur. He couldn't be close to anything fragile but nothing's immortal. He pulled at his fur.
Peter stuck the spoon into the dirt and grabbed Rocket's wrists. “That doesn't work either.”
He grasped Quill's arm until his knuckles were numb and choked out a whine when his voice was supposed to sound cold and unbothered. “I can't be alone.”
Quill squeezed his shoulders in return. “There's still three people here, y'know. You can't leave my fucking club now.”
He kept a hand around Rocket's wrist so he wouldn't have ten fingers to tear his skin to pieces and dug with the spoon with the other one, steadily and rhythmically. Like Rocket wasn't a bomb ready to explode.
He stared at Peter and his eyes burned more than his lungs because he's seen what trust does, and the damage is only visible when he's already carrying a new ghost around. If tenderness made his bones melt and gave him something he couldn't afford to have, he needed to give it a reason to cease. He couldn't keep it. He couldn't keep anyone else.
The spoon was snatched from Peter's hands and Rocket's wide eyes were tied to his, sharp and shiny like thorns in the rain. “Get off.”
Quill blinked. Didn't yell, didn't leave, didn't break the pot in two. Just blinked. “Why?”
“‘Cause you don't know where you're gettin’ your stupid ass into!” He breathed through gritted teeth, drooled and wiped at his nose. “Quill, go.”
“Can we at least finish th--”
“Get off!”
Peter didn't obey just yet. His eyes wouldn't leave Rocket until he squeezed his shaking shoulders, got up on his dirty knees and opened his mouth in silence before walking off. Rocket licked the water pooled up in the corner of his mouth. It was salty.
He wrapped his arms around the pot and stared at Quill's footprints with his back to the wall. The blue light filtered through the window from somewhere and flickered on the white floor, his chest rising and falling and falling and rising as he stabbed the dirt with the spoon for the first time. He noticed the absence of pain in his knuckles and the cuts all over his hands made the tightness in his chest sharpen.