fool's holiday. •❆❅*⋆꙳*₊⋆ [NEW DEC 26]
borealis: year three | year one | year two | collections | nav | fanfiction
spice | gn reader | oneshot | ~8779 words.
see below for context/warnings.
every year, rocket gets dragged along to his earther-friends' annual holiday celebration. thankfully, he can always count on enjoying the post-party with kitty's cute friend.
until he flarks it all up, anyway.
❆ read fool's holiday on ao3 now.
NOTE: i hope this wraps you in coziness and reminds you of all the goodness you deserve in life (and you do deserve it). this story incorporates some historical context from abnett & lanning's "brain storm" short in annhilators volume 1, issue 4 (explained in the end-notes) but you don't need to have read it to ride this ride,
“Hey, heartbreaker."
Rocket's lip curls again. He doesn’t look up.
The door closes behind you, cutting him off from the glow. K’ythri H Flark, he can smell you — no, he can taste you. Salt and sweet on his tongue, like those buttery-soft cookies you make special for Pete whenever this time of the Earther-year rolls around. Your feet crunch quietly in the snow.
“Cocoa? Or cider?”
He sinks his teeth into his tongue, trying to wrangle up some words that don’t make him sound like an absolute grizmod.
“Which one’s spiked?” he asks at last — dry, and sucking down another breath of wonderweed smoke.
“Neither,” you admit cheerfully. “Though if you wanna come inside—“
He snorts. “I’ll take the cider.”
He likes your cider — even when it doesn’t have any alcohol in it. Warm, spicy, sweet. Weird Earther fruit-slices floating in it, and that thing you’d called a cinnamon stick that looks like a flarked-up roll of tree-bark, and a little seed-pod that looks like a star or a flower. Superfluous and pretty.
You hand it over — ready for him, with streaming loops of steam up into the stars — and he switches his grip on the cigarette so he can accept it. And even though his fingers only wrap around the handle of the mug, he can feel the warmth through the porcelain kissing his knuckles. He lifts the mug — takes a sip, even as you murmur a warning. Yeah, it’s a little too hot — but so what? He’s never been good at waiting.
And of course, your cider warms him more than a wonderweed cigarette ever could.
You dust a space off the rail just above him, sweeping snow to your left — so careful not to get any in his fur. Then you prop your forearms against it, adopting his rejected mug of cocoa and cradling it in your palms. Quietly, you lean out into the snowy night and fairylights beside him.
He scowls again. Inside, a new song starts, and the rhythm filters out into his fur. It’s resonant and pulse-pounding and regretful all at once — chimes and bells and drums and something you’d once called an electric guitar, with some d’ast humie singer lamenting the absence of his lover this Christmas.
The lover’s prob’ly gone off to greener pastures, Rocket assumes sourly. Most likely ‘cause the musician-in-question had been a son-of-a-sch’mag in the first place.
“Shouldn’t you be wearin’ a coat?” Rocket grouses at you, canting a sideways glower at the thinness of your oversized white cableknit sweater. You’ve got the sleeves stretched long, tucked snug around your thumbs as you cradle your cocoa in your palms. You glow in the fey snow-light — like a moon-elf from the Nine Realms.
“I—“
“How you gonna stay warm?” he demands with another scowl, not waiting for your answer. “Humies ain’t got enough flarkin’ fur for this kinda weather.”
You arch an eyebrow right back, playful and light despite his rotten attitude. “My lack of fur didn’t seem to bother you last Christmas,” you tease, and if he wasn’t such a smooth flarkin’ operator, he might’ve stumbled over his own tail — never mind that he’d been standing still.
Because he hadn’t minded your comparative hairlessness — not last Christmas, or the half-dozen before that. In fact, he hadn’t really thought about it at all at first — the same way he hadn’t thought about it with any of the other baldbodied-babes he’d screwed around with over the course of his life. But then, somewhere around Christmas Number Three, he’d touched you, unable to keep himself from skimming sensitive fingertips lightly over the back of your hand as if on accident.
The sensation had burnt away any lingering hesitations about Earther-regrets or Kitty’s friends. He’d waited till after the others had drifted back to the ship or fallen asleep on the floor — till those brief late-night moments he hadn’t even realized he’d been stealing in previous years, when the winter moonlight had silvered the snow and the quiet buzz of the holiday lights had been the only sound, and everything had been painted in long evergreen-ink shadows. Then he’d smirked at you and slyly purred something about how you an’ he never seemed to draw each others’ names in the stupid little gift-exchange, and didn't that seem awfully flarkin’ unlucky when he’d always been the best at both giving and receiving presents? And wouldn’t you like to find out — preferably in the warmth and privacy of your comfy-cozy bed?
You’d blinked at him, so surprised that he’d wondered if you’d been a novice to the world of one-night-stands and casual sex — or if you were just smarter than other Earthers, and getting ready to hit him with an I-don’t-fuck-raccoons right outta the gate.
But then your smile had flickered into something dangerously and beautifully aglow, and you’d laughed.
Why not? you’d asked almost giddily, eyes sparkling. This time of year is for ending old ways and trying something new.
read fool's holiday on ao3 now.
borealis: year three | year one | year two | collections | nav | fanfiction
CONTEXT: roughly comics-inspired (rosenberg/ewing personality-vibes, with historical context from abnett & lanning's "brain storm" short in annhilators volume 1, issue 4 - but you don't need extensive comics-knowledge to ride this ride). minimal descriptions of gn reader but they do have hair — as well as a series of silly holiday sweaters and headwear.
WARNINGS: mutual pining in a big way. rocket playing to his strengths (being in denial/self-sabotaging). direct references to sex and orgasms (one-night stands and longterm-casual arrangements), but no explicit smut/descriptions. brief mention of underwear-stealing. pet names like gorgeous.
star, tree, and fairylight dividers by @zclhs | support banner & titlecard by me! ♡
