florescence❀| navigation | fanfiction masterlist
18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | 5+/6 years | word count: pending.
seeds of second chances.
“Well, this is definitely where I’m gonna fuck you, then,” Rocket growls, and the words are soft and smoky against the rumpled bedroll.
A shiver — ticklish-soft, like feathers and fur — floats up your spine. You let out a shuddery breath and turn back to hold his shining eyes. With the festival tonight, you’d never started a fire in the hearth, and Rocket is just a dark and threatening shadow to your weak vision in the night. Without the fire to throw his ruby-cabochon eyes into glow, you can barely pick him out in the shadows.
“‘Cause I missed you, storyteller.”
Your ears strain. You’re sure he takes a step toward you.
“You and all your pretty words. How stubborn you are. How smart you are. How damn sweet.”
The words float toward you, and your abdomen clenches tight, even while something stings your eyes.
“I missed you too,” you admit. Your voice wobbles, and you scrunch your nose and lick your lips, trying to keep your words measured. “I — so much, sweetheart.”
“I know, babygirl.” He tsks against his teeth — takes another step toward you. Some small shard of light must catch his eyes, because they flash like copper moons — three paces further to the left than you’d thought. “Wouldn’t have believed it a few circs ago, but you miss me every time I’m gone, huh?” His voice roughens — grows hoarse, with something you’re sure is regret. You’ve heard it lingering against his teeth enough times to recognize it. “I was starside for so frickin’ long this time, too. Wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d given up on me—”
“Absolutely not,” you hiss, wounded by the words. The dark silhouette of him raises its hands in mock-surrender, eyes flashing like garnets as he slides another foot forward. “You promised—”
“I know, princess,” he purrs. “I did. But my promises haven’t meant much to most people before now. Groot’s prob’ly the only one who ever believed in ‘em before.” Another careful, measured stride. “The whole frickin’ time I was out there, I was thinking of you. Wanting to get back — tell you how much I love you. Lick that mark I left you.”
Your fingers flutter up to the pearly ring of scars, and your pussy suddenly flutters and dampens. You take a step backward, further onto the bedroll.
“Could bite you a new promise,” he croons dangerously. “One where I don’t gotta leave you behind again.”
Your cunt spasms now, and something beneath your sternum does too: heart clenching just as needily.
“I want that,” you agree breathlessly. “I want that too.”
“Right here,” he continues. “Gonna fuck you and bite you right on this damn bedroll. Can’t tell you how many times I wanted to before.”
Another loping stride toward you; another quick crimson gleam of lava-hot eyes. Your bare toes curl against the softly-crumpled blankets and quilts.
“Wanted to fuck you in this bed for so long, babygirl. Probably since the first morning I came in here — following a stray fuckin’ flerken — and saw you layin’ there, all soft and messy.” His voice dips low. “Like that damn pussy of yours.”
You hear him — breathing in, slow and steady. Inhaling your scent like a hunter.
“I missed her, too, storyteller,” he admits, and when he steps toward you again, he’s got the look of a predator caught in his eyeshine once more. It sends a shiver up your spine. “An’ I can tell by the way she smells that she missed me back.”
from chapter six year five: dispersal, part three
[anticipated 4/30] ❤︎❤︎
florescence❀| navigation | fanfiction masterlist
WARNINGS for this chapter: touch of primal play, touch of somno, light bondage/blindfolding, torn clothing, The Tail™. tons of dirty talk. light painplay, nipple-play and tit-slapping, marking (claws, teeth/biting), praise, light degradation, "slut" (affectionate), lots of overstim, masturbation, cunnilingus.
“The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there.”
rocket & groot leave their friends behind on knowhere, despite the latter’s protests, and end up hiding out on a nothing-planet (with a non-extradition policy) at the edge of the shi’ar galaxy.
flower divider by @/thecutestgrotto • planet divider by @/edensrose • mdni & support banners by @/saradika-graphics • moodboard by me! ♡
FINAL CHAPTER!
[Part I anticipated 4/24] ❤︎
[Part II anticipated 4/30] ❤︎
florescence❀ | navigation | fanfiction masterlist
18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | 5/6 years | word count: pending.
seeds of second chances.
He snarls a negation against your throat, his teeth snapping and skimming against the delicate skin, the arteries and tendons beneath. Your cunt flutters at the intoxicating swim of danger and desire. He always tries to hold back, you know — always tries to fight the instinctive urge to clamp his teeth deep in your muscle and skin, to hold you steady with his bite while he fucks into you hard and fast. But tonight, wild impulse has you furrowing your fingers deep into the velvet luxury of his fur, hands burrowing and twisting and tugging on the silken strands.
“Bite me,” you urge breathily, and he rears back in your arms.
“What? Storyteller, no. I ain’t gonna hurt you—“
“Bite me, please,” you beg. “Leave me a mark that won’t disappear by the time the season’s over—“
He shakes his head, but you can see the magma-hot flash of his crimson eyes. His nostrils flare and his ears tilt forward, lip peeling away from sharp canines. He wants to.
“I don’t wanna scar you—“
You pull him closer, garlanding his head with your arms — pulling him into the softness of your throat and your bare, silken breasts.
“Bite me a promise,” you whisper into the shell of his ear. "Bite me you’re coming back.”
florescence❀ chapter six year five: dispersal, part one
[anticipated 4/24] ❤︎
WARNINGS for this chapter: angst, loneliness, grief, self-dout. more plot than smut, but the smut is there! sweet soft sex, pussy-slapping, light "punishment," biting, light dom/sub vibes.
“The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there.”
rocket & groot leave their friends behind on knowhere, despite the latter’s protests, and end up hiding out on a nothing-planet (with a non-extradition policy) at the edge of the shi’ar galaxy.
flower divider by @/thecutestgrotto • planet divider by @/edensrose • mdni & support banners by @/saradika-graphics • moodboard by me! ♡
18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | 3/3 parts | word count: 44,521.
COMPLETE. back to main masterlist.
wind·fall /ˈwin(d)ˌfôl/ noun. an apple or other fruit blown down from a tree or bush by the wind; an unexpected piece of good fortune.
semi-shy touch-deprived reader tries to avoid meeting knowhere’s intimidating captain. is profoundly unsuccessful.
based on a prompt by @creativepromptsforwriting: The apartment she moved to has a beautiful, well-tended garden. After a while she finds out that her neighbor is the one tending to the plants and she decides to help him out one day.
mcu-based, post-volume-three. see warnings below.
⭑˚.⚘𖡼𖥧𖤣 collects Parts One through Three.
Part One. Sugared Violets. 𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘.˚⭑ groot attempts to parent-trap his dad. ✩
Part Two. Crystallized Ginger. 𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘.˚⭑ nebula talks some sense into the captain. ❤︎
Part Three. Candied Apples. 𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘.˚⭑ thievery in the garden.❤︎❤︎
WARNINGS: rising sexual tension and possible secondhand embarassment in part one. flirting, teasing, and rocket's filthy fantasies in part two. smut in chapter three (see chapter heading for warnings).
no skin color, hair texture, or body shape/size specified in this work - the bodies depicted above & below are solely present to show off the damn dress.
some explicit statements or references ✩
explicit scenes or fantasy sequences ❤︎
long, detailed, and graphic explicit content ❤︎❤︎
deliberately smut-free, mostly or entirely platonic ✮
florescence❀ (a meetgroot*)
year four: formation ⋆˚✿˖°
[NEW 9/24] ❤︎❤︎ my very long and ongoing birthday gift to the rocket fan community ~ thank you for sharing this space with me ♡♡♡
florescence❀ masterlist | read year four on ao3
navigation | fanfiction masterlist | art masterlist
read year four on ao3 | florescence❀ masterlist
navigation | fanfiction masterlist | art masterlist
18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | 5/6 years | word count: pending.
everything blossoms. rating increases. see warnings below and on ao3.
“I like it,” he interrupts quickly, his voice somehow straddling the knife-edge between sharp and raspy. “I frickin’ — I like it.”
Your smile tugs wider on your lips. “Yeah?”
He shrugs, and his burnt-ruby eyes shift away to some hidden shadowed corner of the cottage ceiling. He huffs a breath — almost a scoff, if not for the strangled yearning you can hear folded into the sound.
“I mean. It’s fine. Whatever.”
You chew your lip, and take a page out of his book, dropping your lids to half-mast and gazing at him through hooded eyes, lashes heavy. “I bet I can think of some other things you might like.”
He blinks. “Okay.”
You feel the curve of your lips twitch again, cheeks lifting your eyes into soft crescents. Oh, he’s not getting it. At all. You’re surprised, based on the heat you sometimes see gathering in his lava-glowing eyes — the knowing smirk that so often tilts the corner of his mouth and presses one fang into his lip. But he seems only perplexed as you lean forward, eyes flickering with something dark and warm before he shutters them. They fly wide when you lift yourself to your hands and knees, pupils following to eclipse that ring of molten red as you slowly begin to crawl toward him. You tip your back into a little arch, letting your hips roll and sway as you lope toward him on all fours. His eyes get bigger and bigger — the beautiful soft brows of his mask arching higher and his pupils swelling and blooming like dark moons, catching firelight and fickering into flat copper coins as you move through the room, all the way until you’ve knelt yourself right at his feet. It’s a spot you’ve sat in a hundred times before, curved at the base of the chair you’d long ago decided was his — but it’s different now. You know it is, because you’re making it different. You coast your fingers against the bottom hems of his jumpsuit, up the outer seams on his calves, and then dance your fingertips over his knees — watching his sharply-drawn inhalations through the feathery haze of your lashes.
“What are you doing?” he asks, and it’s almost choked.
“Sweetheart,” you purr. “I’m trying to seduce you.”
read more ao3 | florescence❀ masterlist
WARNINGS: dirty talk, seduction, striptease, fellatio, praise to the nth power, body worship, nervous rocket, implied dom rocket, dirty talk, mentions of sex toys and anal play and tit-fucking and The Tail, (accidental?) sensation play/marking with claws, use of "slut" (affectionate), mentions of creative positions, aftercare, outdoor sex, lots of feelings. a near break-up.
“The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there.”
rocket & groot leave their friends behind on knowhere, despite the latter’s protests, and end up hiding out on a nothing-planet (with a non-extradition policy) at the edge of the shi’ar galaxy.
flower divider by @/thecutestgrotto • planet divider by @/edensrose • mdni & support banners by @/saradika-graphics • moodboard by me! ♡
dispersal. year five: part three. ⋆˚✿˖°
FINALE!! (for real this time) [new 4/30]
florescence❀ masterlist | read year five: part three on ao3
navigation | fanfiction masterlist | art masterlist
18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | 6/6 years | word count: 96,080.
COMPLETE!
seeds of second chances.
part three (the final part). see warnings (and a note) below and on ao3.
“After breakfast, we head up and dock with the Third Quadrant. After that — well, I guess we can do whatever we want. We should maybe look up some local bounties, maybe start making our way over to Andromeda—”
“I actually had a thought,” you interrupt, and wince. You’re so new to the group — maybe you have no right. But they’ll want to hear this. You think they will, anyway. If they don’t discount you. “About — uhm. What we could do next. Or — what we could do soon. When we’re ready.”
You can feel all the eyes in the kitchen turn toward you, and you grimace. Pretend you’re just telling a story, you remind yourself, because certainly you’ve been the center of attention to a much wider audience before.
Still, the stakes had never felt quite so high.
“I am Groot?” Groot asks curiously.
“Really?” Rocket asks. His gleaming brows are arched. “There some place you always wanted to see and didn’t tell me about, storyteller?”
His hand crawls across the space between you, hidden beneath the table. He squeezes your thigh — the unbitten one, though it still has its own garden of amethyst bruises that had bloomed overnight.
You can already see the filthy leer starting to form in the corner of Rocket’s mouth.
“F’you want a little honeymoon-type thing—”
Heat cascades into your cheeks, but you arch your own brow at him. You might be exhausted and sore, but you still wouldn’t turn that idea down. “I’d love that, actually.” Your eyes flick back to the rest of the room. “But no, that’s not what I’m talking about right now.”
“Gross,” Pete says again, almost conversationally.
You chew your lip, then nod once to yourself. Confidence. What you’re about to share is potentially volatile. Emotional. Maybe you’re blowing up your spot in this little family, before you ever get off the ground.
But still.
You swallow, and take a breath. “I told you I had a story I wanted to tell you about this morning. After we’d rested.”
read more on ao3 | florescence❀ masterlist
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if you take nothing else from this silly little fic, i hope it’s that your stories matter. the ones you dream up, and the ones that actually happened to you. the ones you write and paint and otherwise give voice to, and the ones you tell your friends when they ask how your day was, and the ones you keep all to yourself. they matter ~ so much. they are a gift to anyone who is fortunate enough to hear them.
and if there’s a second thing you take from this silly fic, i hope it’s that your blorbo loves you very much and can't wait to take you to space (and fuck you often & well).
thank you for letting me be part of this community, and for being part of it with me.
WARNINGS: touch of primal play, touch of somno, light bondage/blindfolding, torn clothing, The Tail™. tons of dirty talk. light painplay, nipple-play and tit-slapping, marking (claws, teeth/biting), praise, light degradation, "slut" (affectionate), lots of overstim, masturbation, cunnilingus..
“The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there.”
rocket & groot leave their friends behind on knowhere, despite the latter’s protests, and end up hiding out on a nothing-planet (with a non-extradition policy) at the edge of the shi’ar galaxy.
flower divider by @/thecutestgrotto • planet divider by @/edensrose • mdni & support banners by @/saradika-graphics • moodboard by me! ♡
an excerpt from Part Three
Candied Apples. 𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘.˚⭑
thievery in the garden.❤︎❤︎
⭑˚.⚘𖡼𖥧𖤣 windfall masterlist | main masterlist
finally finished drafting the third (and final) part of ⭑˚.⚘𖡼𖥧𖤣 windfall 𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘.˚⭑ (a meetgroot), currently clocking in at 37 pages and 17,251 words of teasing, smut, and sentimental nonsense. is any of it good? who knows? but i should be done editing it and have it posted sometime next month (you can check the monthly forecast on july 1 and i should have a semi-concrete posting date by then). in the meantime, to whet your appetite...
fluff ✮ | spice ✩ | some smut ❤︎ | much smut ❤︎❤︎
18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | 2/3 parts | wip | word count: pending.
“All right, sweetheart,” he croons, his mouth still just a breath from your jaw, from the soft needy flesh of your throat. You feel yourself sway toward him, but he shifts at the same time you do: pulling back, keeping himself just a whisper out of your reach. “Go on. Tell me what you’ve been thinking about, so I know what you like when I put my hands all over you.”
“I — I think about a lot of different things,” you manage to choke out. Your eyes flicker: catching him in your periphery, then casting back out over the city and the sparkling of its lights. You can see your rooftop community garden from here, and the ropes of plasma orbs draped like glittering diamond necklaces over the rows of growing things. You concentrate on it. Your breath feels shallow and thin, lungs straining with the weight of your need. “Sometimes I — sometimes I think about you being rough with me.” Maybe you shouldn’t say that. Maybe you should ask for gentle, for light touches and sweet words, for something romantic and soft. You do like romantic and soft, sometimes. But right now you’re so desperate — for touch, for his touch — right now you’re so greedy and needy and wanting — that any softer fantasies turn instead into bruising hands and welts left by claws, and thrusts so hard that your teeth click together in your dreams.
Admitting it aloud, though? You’re not sure you’ve ever been so humiliated in your life. Your eyes flutter closed in a wince, and your thighs clench under your ruffled skirt.
“Oh, yeah?” The drawl of his voice is low and entertained. He tsks. “Just like I thought — gettin’ yourself into trouble here, and too shy to do anything about it. You’re gonna have to be more specifical than that, princess.”
You bite your lip and hazard a sideways glance at him. “What — how—”
“What’s it like when you think about me—” His voice drops, turning predatory. “—being all rough with you?”
“I — I don’t know.” Your breath feels even more tattered and frayed. “You seem — strong. I think you could maybe — throw me around if you wanted to?” God. You press your fingertips back into your cheeks, giving up the charade of pretending to being anything but mortified. “I guess — I’m not really sure how that would work since I’m so much bigger than you?”
He tilts his face in closer to you — a whisper of his fur against the back of your fingers. “Oh, I think I can figure it out.” Each word is bitten around a sharp-toothed smile. “So tell me more, shy girl. In these damp little daydreams of yours, do I got you on all fours?”
You hiccuping a gasp, knees suddenly wobbling at the image that flashes to the forefront of your mind. “Uhm, sometimes,” you whisper. “Other times, uhm — on my back? With, uhm, my knees folded up against my chest?”
He makes a sound in your ear — a sort of low, rumbling clicking noise. The edges of his fur vibrate against you. “Uh-huh. That sounds nice to me, angel. A real nice little thing you’re just aching to give me.”
You swallow.
“Anything else, when I take you rough?” It’s a purr, you realize — a true purr. You hadn’t known a purr could sound so dangerous. “You like getting your ass slapped, angel?” The endearment sounds like a taunt, now.
You lick your lips. “I — I’ve never tried it before, but…” You trail off, everything in you furling so tight you can’t get the words out.
“But you think about it,” he finishes with a grin — so smug, so self-satisfied and sharp that you can feel it cramping your abdomen. Your eyes are wide on him when you nod, before they swerve away — trying to retain some last scrap of self-preservation.
Still, you can hear him chuckle — can feel it, teasing against the skin that’s crying out for him.
“You open to us trying a little bit of that, then?” he rumbles against you, tilting his head and dipping his nose deeper into the space between your neck and your shoulder — like he wants to nuzzle in, but won’t. He’s taunting you — maybe taunting himself too — and he’s close enough that you can pick up on the scent of him: something like juniper, and something like blackberries. Leather — probably from his uniform — and something sharp and smoky. You breathe it in greedily — take it into your lungs like you’d plant a garden of it if you could.
“M’not interested in smacking your face around,” the Captain adds, “but I’d slap just about any other part of you if you let me.” He pulls back, and from the corner of your eye, you can see his tongue run over his teeth — like he’s imagining tasting the warmth of your skin after it’s been struck a few times. “I’d frickin’ love to see you bounce, sweetheart.”
Your breath stutters out of your lungs in a shaky stumble that you try to crush back. Your fingers clutch rigidly at the edge of the wall. “I’d be okay with that,” you manage to squeak out, trying to reign in the thump of your heart on your breastbone.
His hand snaps out, black skin on black shadows, and he grips the line of your chin and turns your face abruptly toward him. It’s sudden, and maybe a little scary — your heart and belly both tumble inside you and you choke on a gasp — but it’s also the first time he’s really touched you beyond his knuckles teasing under your sundress-strap, and the featherlight bracelet of his fingers on your wrist. You immediately melt into his grasp. Everything inside you leans into him, until you dazedly think that he’s holding you up, just by his fingertips kissing your face. He startles at the way you sink into his demanding grasp — then lets another pitying smirk curl the corner of his mouth.
“Needy little Terran pet,” he muses, stroking his thumb just once, back and forth along your jaw. You struggle to hold back the little whimper wisping up over your ribs, and you think at first that you’re successful — but he must see your throat working, because he laughs again: softly, this time, but meanly.
“Gotta say though, angel, I’m not interested in what you’re okay with.”
For the first time, his voice drops from a quiet, mocking sort of laughter and into something closer to a growl. It sounds dangerous, but your body doesn’t seem to realize that — or maybe it doesn’t care. Your skin prickles deliciously: every muscle straining for him, every cell lighting up and begging.
“M’only interested in what’s gonna make you wet. And what’s gonna make you whine for more.”
Your mouth pools with saliva and you have to swallow. “W-what about you?” you whisper, and your voice is as shivery as new leaves in a manufactured Knowhere breeze, trembling on the play of shadow and soft glow, filtering over the rooftops and glimmering between the branches of Groot’s trees. “What did — what do you think about? What do you like?”
The threat in his voice drops away, but you’d be a fool to think for a moment that he isn’t still a predator in his own right. The smirk grows wider: unrepentant and leering.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he purrs. “I like to run my frickin’ mouth.”
wind·fall /ˈwin(d)ˌfôl/ noun. an apple or other fruit blown down from a tree or bush by the wind; an unexpected piece of good fortune.
semi-shy touch-deprived reader tries to avoid meeting knowhere’s intimidating captain. is profoundly unsuccessful.
based on a prompt by @creativepromptsforwriting: The apartment she moved to has a beautiful, well-tended garden. After a while she finds out that her neighbor is the one tending to the plants and she decides to help him out one day.
⭑˚.⚘𖡼𖥧𖤣 windfall masterlist | main masterlist
new! flower dividers & banners by @/saradika-graphics
florescence❀. FINALE!! part two. [new 4/27] ✮✩
year five: part two ⋆˚✿˖°
florescence❀masterlist | read year five: part two on ao3
navigation | fanfiction masterlist | art masterlist
18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | 5+/6 years | word count: pending.
seeds of second chances.
part two. see warnings below and on ao3.
“Rocket’s back!”
Your eyes collide with the ash-clouds above, and sure enough, a glittering white streak splinters the veil. You’re already on your feet — Progo and Spiders Georg both tumbling rudely to the quilt — and your boots crunch on crystal-covered ground as a new ship — a little bit bigger, and far sleeker than you’re used to — begins to drop over the vacant gap in the meadow. Your heart trips over itself — hope, and confusion, and misgivings. Fear that this isn’t Rocket at all, but some new stranger — and that all your wishes are about to clatter and crack and shatter against the diamonds that sprout out of the soil. Your booted feet skitter as you stagger to a halt at the side of the ship, and both of your hands anchor themselves to your sternum: fingers fanned and clinging to your collarbone like it’s the edge of a cliff.
The hatch hisses. The figure on the ramp — too tall. Too human. A mop of dark-amber hair, wavy and furled. A tired voice, higher than you’d hoped for. Something behind your sternum wilts, shriveling, and your shoulders and spine hunch to try to hold everything inside your ribs.
“Hey, folks,” the stranger says, with a sparkling, lopsided smile. Some distant part of you can tell he’s used to charming people, even if his peridot eyes are bruised and haunted. “Sorry to crash the party, but my pilot said it couldn’t wait.” He sketches a bow that reminds you, strangely, of home. “The name’s Star-Lord.” Something in his face crumbles. “But, uh. You probably haven’t heard of me, out this far—”
But you have. Years ago. It’s only now you realize who Rocket must have meant. Quill. Quill and—
“Star-Lord and Gamora and Drax,” you say softly.
The Terran blinks at you, and you can see the flicker of something anguished and hunted before he nods slowly. “Huh. Yeah. I guess he must’ve told you—”
“Get outta the frickin’ way, Pete.”
read more on ao3 | florescence❀ masterlist
part three ~ the FINAL-final part ✿ coming april 30
WARNINGS: this is an exposition-heavy chapter! angst, grief, pining. storyteller-reader has to resettle into life after another major upheaval.
“The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there.”
rocket & groot leave their friends behind on knowhere, despite the latter’s protests, and end up hiding out on a nothing-planet (with a non-extradition policy) at the edge of the shi’ar galaxy.
flower divider by @/thecutestgrotto • planet divider by @/edensrose • mdni & support banners by @/saradika-graphics • moodboard by me! ♡
florescence❀| navigation | fanfiction masterlist
18+ only MDNI | no use of y/n | f!reader | 5+/6 years | word count: pending.
seeds of second chances.
It’s been a few cycles since Rocket had swept himself back into the stars — into an uncertain future that he may not come back from, by loss or by choice — and you still can’t bring yourself to come inside the cottage most nights. You tell the kids stories and you kiss their foreheads. They’re so much older now than they were when they had come to you, and yet still, somehow they seem so small. Once they’re asleep, you come out to the fire, and you stare at the embers and the distant lava-flows, and the veil of ash in the sky that hides the stars from you.
“It’s starting to get cold,” Eudox tells you one night, frowning as he drapes a quilt from the cottage over your shoulders. “Really cold. You won’t be able to sleep out here for many more nights.”
You slant a grin up at him, but you know it looks tired. “Who’s sleeping, little brother?”
He rolls his eyes and drops to the ground beside you. He’s grown taller than you over the years — a true adult, now. “You gotta take care of yourself.”
You hum a note. “I’m doing okay, I’m just waiting to see if he comes back. Or, you know, if Groot does.” You stretch your legs toward the fire —rotate your ankles in front of the flames. More words float up in your throat; you fight them back with a soft shake of your head.
“Talk to me, sis.” He bumps you with one shoulder. “I’m all grown up now, you know?” It’s an echo of your earlier thoughts, and it pulls a rueful smile into the corner of your mouth. “You don’t have to worry so much about me anymore.”
Still, you hesitate, trying to measure out all your competing, conflicting emotion. “I’m just feeling useless, I guess,” you admit. “I wish — I don’t know. I mean, Eudox, he’s done so much for this whole planet. Saved it, maybe, in some ways. And now, if this works, he’s going to save half of the whole universe. And — here I am. An abductee from Terra who sits around telling stories, waiting for him to come home.”
The silence pools between you, lingering between the blades of meadowgrass where frost is already starting to crystallize.
“Okay,” your adopted brother says slowly. “But — I think you might’ve saved him.”
You snort. “That’s—”
“Look,” Eudox interrupts, like he’s got no patience for your protestations, “if you’re feeling useless — which is ridiculous, by the way; you’re taking care of two kids who love you, who would be parentless without you. You’ve been taking care of me. You’re still storytelling in the city. But if you’re feeling useless, let’s find something for you to do. You haven’t gone on tour since the Blight happened.”
“Nobody has,” you remind him. “Or — very few have, anyway. Almost all the storytellers who didn’t turn into ash are in the same situation that I am. We’re taking care of kids or taking on new community roles — there’s no time to travel from city to city, just to tell stories.”
“Well, maybe there should be,” Eudox snaps, though there’s no real sharpness to his voice. “Maybe we should make sure there is. It’s been such an important part of our culture for so long. And like I keep telling you — your stories are important. They matter.”
You bring your knees back to your chin and hug your shins. It’s an easier sentiment to believe in the abstract: that stories as a whole matter; that other peoples’ stories matter.
But yours? When have you ever had anything to say that was worth anyone listening to at all?
“If I didn’t leave ‘Lyxa and Xav for the chance to travel through space with Rocket — to go back to Terra, by the way — then I’m sure as hell not leaving them to tell stories.”
You can see in your periphery when Eudox opens his mouth to fight you — and when he sighs, and his shoulders slump. For a long time, you sit in the shared quiet. Your pensive breath begins to form wispy clouds in the cold hair. The Cindelian frowns, and reaches into the bag at his side.
“I’m going to bed,” he tells you. “I’ll be headed out on an aid run with a group from the city early tomorrow. But I want you to take this and — at least check the guilds, okay? See if there are any tours announced by the collectives, any cities that are looking for a visiting storyteller. If you want to go, we’ll figure it out. I can stay with the kids for a cycle, or they can go to Bazeele’s. You know anyone from the city would be happy to keep them for a while.”
He sets his datapad beside you — nudges it across the quilt and closer to your hip with his knuckles.
“Be safe,” you tell him, turning liquid eyes up to him — trying not to let the sense of uselessness pinch you even more sharply. He rises — squeezes your shoulder through the quilt.
“I’m coming back,” he says quietly. “And so is Rocket.”
You listen to his receding steps, softly crunching in the grass and gravel. Your eyes fall to the two cylinders of the datapad, and linger there in the shadows. The light from the fire licks goldenly over them. There’s a thought that lingers at the back of your mind, that you’ve had a hundred times over the years — especially since the Blight happened. You’d even dared to voice it, once, to Rocket — deep in the quiet dark shadows of your living room, after Alyxa had gotten so angry at the idea of her parents being ghosts. A belief that clings to the inside of your mind on your worst days, one that rattles in your bones.
A handful of useless stories were never going to make up for what people lost.
You turn the phrase over and over in your head, letting it bruise you— letting it stab the space behind your eyes with stinging, burning tears.
But then — like a fragaria that had been cross-pollinated with one of Groot’s mountain-snow flowers — a little tendril of green curls up from the crumbling, inhospitable thought. And the soft green tendril unfurls into a single word.
Except…
You open the datapad, and navigate through screens and communities until you find the network of storytelling guilds.
And you post a transmission.
from chapter six year five: dispersal, part two
[anticipated 4/27] ✩
florescence❀| navigation | fanfiction masterlist
WARNINGS for this chapter: angst, loneliness, grief, self-doubt. trying to figure out your place when the whole universe has been shaken up. again. final part anticipated 4/30.
“The only chance we got is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there.”
rocket & groot leave their friends behind on knowhere, despite the latter’s protests, and end up hiding out on a nothing-planet (with a non-extradition policy) at the edge of the shi’ar galaxy.
flower divider by @/thecutestgrotto • planet divider by @/edensrose • mdni & support banners by @/saradika-graphics • moodboard by me! ♡
