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raccoonfallsharder · 2 months

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rocket raccoon prompt week ✷ day six bite ✷.⁺⋆˚₊

low-grade spice & fluff | no use of yn | gn reader | minific | word count: 2,266.

“That’s — a big frickin’ scar you got there.”

Your eyes flare wide and you twist in your seat so fast you nearly spin off it, staring at the stranger who has just hoisted himself onto the barstool next to you. Not because you recognize the voice — you don’t yet, though you will — but just because it’s such a personal remark.

And you’re a little bit sensitive about the scar, if you’re being honest. It’s something of a souvenir.

Then recognition clicks in. Because there he is: short. Covered in fur. Velveteen ears and a dark mask, and a plush ringtail that sweeps behind him. Eyes like red stars.

Cutie.

You stare at him, breath sucked right out of your lungs. He’s got hesitation scrawled and sprawled all over his face: ears flicking down and tail lashing once, nervously. His claws clink against his massive, nearly-empty stein of Xitarish whiskey.

You tear your eyes away and stare down at the ring of pearly ridges stitched into your arm — like maybe there were answers carved into your flesh there all along, and you’d just never noticed. Or like each toothmark is a lodestar, and together the circle of them can help get you home.

“Isn’t it rude? To comment on a stranger’s scars?” you breathe out, trying to buy yourself time as all the pieces begin falling together.

He blinks at you, and shifts uncomfortably. “Uh, Jemiah.” He gestures at the owner of The Boot, who just so happens to be your boss. “Next drink’s on me.”

“Sure thing, Rocket,” Jemiah says warmly — far more warmly than you’ve ever heard from him before.

You feel your eyes flare wide. “You’re Rocket?” you manage to utter, eyes scrolling up and down him again. “One of the people who bought this damn skull? The pilot — the Guardian of the Galaxy or whatever?”

Somehow he looks even more uncomfortable. “Guardians of the Galaxy. Plural. We’re — a team.”

You exhale slowly — measuredly — and try to loosen all the small feathers of confusion crowding up your head, downy-soft. And as you let go of all those wisps, adrenaline rushes in to take their place: the intoxication of suddenly seeing him. Meeting him — for real this time. Having a name to put with the memory.

Your smile blows wide. You can’t help yourself.

“The cutie has a team,” you murmur under your breath, and you feel the blood rush to your cheeks when his eyes sharpen on you. He shifts on his stool, but his shoulders relax a little, and the corner of his mouth twitches.

“Don’t listen to him, Jemiah,” you call out. “His drink’s on me.”

Your boss ducks to hide his grin even as the cutie in question — Rocket, you think, with a pleased little grin — grimaces. “Wait—“ he starts.

You click your tongue and shake your head, cutting him off and grinning. “Not a chance. You bought this stupid skull out from under the Collector and made it a tolerable place to live? There’s no way you’re buying the drinks. I have to show my gratitude somehow.”

You drop your lids to half-mast and raise a brow, hoping he knows that you’re happy to show your gratitude in a few other ways as well. The risk of offering brings a nervous little buzz to your belly.

As for him — well, you get the sense that he’s a guy who doesn’t let himself flounder very often, but right now his face is flickering between so many emotions that you can’t possibly catch them all. Shock, and then a brief flash of something like smugness, followed immediately by a flash of narrow-eyed skepticism — then a sort of uncertain hesitance, a brief twinge of humor, and finally, a cynical half-sneer. Then he starts right back at the beginning and does it all over again.

It’s fascinating.

“Did you know,” you say slowly when Jemiah sets down the fresh drinks, “that I work here at The Boot?”

The stranger — no longer a stranger, you suppose; no longer just the cutie — no, Rocket pauses in his cycle of expressions, takes a slug of his new stein of whiskey, and shakes himself out.

Where the hell does he put it? you wonder. The stein is as big as his whole torso, you think.

But he doesn’t seem buzzed at all. Instead, he casts you a measuring, sideways glance, entirely too alert for your tastes.

“You don’t say,” he drawls at last, one brow raised as his spine eases a little more.

“Mmhmm,” you say mildly. “It’s my day off.” You pause meaningfully and take another sip of your own drink. “Didn’t used to get days off in Exitar. Or anywhere else on Knowhere, as a matter of fact.”

His eyes track your hands, and flick to your face.

“Guess the difference is all thanks to you,” you tell him lightly, and tilt your glass toward him. “Here’s to the happy change in leadership.”

He studies you, and waits till you set your drink down again.

“So. Uh. How long you worked here?” he asks — as if he didn’t already have at least some idea.

You grin into your glass. “Long enough to have developed a very strict set of rules for my survival.”

His ears flick. You’re glad he’s indulging you — playing along for now. “What’re the rules?”

You lean back. “I’m glad you asked,” you tease, and splay out one hand so you can count them on your fingers. “Number one. Avoid the Collector at all costs.”

He snorts. “Well, guess you’re not a complete idiot,” he mutters, and then slashes his red-amber eyes at you and flinches, like he thinks maybe you’re going to be offended.

But you only wink at him. Not a chance, cutie. “Number two. Never hide all your units in one place — or on one datacard.”

A smirk curls the corner of his mouth and his nose twitches.

“Three. Always lock your doors behind you. And four, Don’t walk home alone from the Boot.” The smirk slides off his face at that and his eyes flash, so you rush along to the next rule, hoping to lighten the mood again. “Five. Always get customers’ money before you hand them their booze.”

There you go. The little curve is back at the corner of his mouth, even if his brow is still furrowed — almost like he’s distressed.

You lean sideways and nudge him with your elbow. “And finally, number six.” He looks up at you and his ears tilt, eyes locked on yours like glimmering red stones. You lean so close you know your breath will flutter in the curve of his ear, and you drop your voice to a whisper. “Don’t try to break up fights.”

The pilot rears back, nearly tumbling backward off his stool, and you reach for him before you both catch yourselves. Reeling your outstretched hand back into yourself, you instead gift him a reckless grin and turn to your drink once more.

“It’s not a comprehensive list,” you tell him pragmatically, “and it isn’t in any particular order, but it’s kept me alive this long.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rocket says, and his voice is suddenly raspy and low. “Even that last one?”

The laughter surprises you, fluttering up behind your ribs and escaping between your lips, soft and velvety and hushed.

“I only broke that one once,” you tell him, lifting your glass to your mouth and half-hiding your grin behind it. You can tell your eyes are sparkling, though. “And it’s not like I ever regretted it.”

He makes a sound in the back of his throat. “Sounds like you got a story.”

“Mmm,” you acknowledge, and you keep your voice playful. “It was years ago, now. I knew all the regulars back then — well, I still do, but more of them were jackasses back in the day. And this guy comes in — someone I’d never seen before. Swaggering, carrying a cannon twice as big as himself. Maybe — three feet tall? A true Short King.”

He’s got his stein to his lips and he chokes on a mouthful of whiskey, sputtering. “A what?”

You ignore him, still casting him that teasing half-smile and raising an eyebrow. “He had pretty eyes, and I remember him being more foulmouthed than a landlocked Ravager.”

“Pretty — what?”

“Keep up, Rocket,” you taunt lightly, tapping a finger to the air just an inch away from the top of his nose, and his eyes go narrow. Everything on his face is suddenly promising retribution, but you’re reckless with glee now.

And you’ll be happy to pay up if he actually comes to collect.

“I told him that I needed payment up front when he ordered—“

“Get the money before you hand them their booze,” he echoes Rule Five, eyes still hunting you, and you nod with mock-approval.

“You get it,” you say with a chuckle. “Anyway, his response was just to swipe another patron’s datacard right in front of me and hand it over.” You can still fucking see it: his challenging half-grin, one brow raised. “I think I stared at him for a full thirty seconds, but this cutie just smirked up at me. Brazen as fuck.”

You laugh softly at the memory, and Rocket — who might as well be your new landlord, you’ve realized — grumbles something under his breath.

“Anyway, I was kinda smitten,” you admit with a little curve in your mouth, still buzzing the inside of your belly.

It’s the truth, too. You’d never thought that raccoon can get it before, but there you were.

And here you are.

To your surprise, Rocket goes quiet at that. The pilot of the famous — or infamous — Guardians of the Galaxy, and one of the new owners of Knowhere: still and silent for a long moment.

Maybe he’ll slip out of his chair and leave, you think, and the flutters in your belly twist in sudden regret. Maybe you’ve scared him off.

But when he speaks, his voice is like crystallized maple syrup: rich and gritty, waiting to crumble and melt and scrub against your skin.

“He’s why you got into a fight?”

You weigh out your options here. What to say? You’d lost sight of the cutie thanks to his height and the constant surge of new customers, and you’d sort of forgotten about him in the moment, to be honest — though you’re sure you’d have remembered later, alone in your shitty little room — but then you’d heard the sudden cacophonous boom of his enormous augmented cannon. There’d been screaming and crashing, and you’d woven yourself between the bodies toward the sound. Just to assess, just to figure out what kind of danger you’d been in—

Fucking B’darl — the worst of your regular patrons — had entered into view and suddenly hoisted the cutie right up into the air before slamming him down into the orloni fighting ring.

You hadn’t thought about it — about anything, really — just thrown yourself through the crowd, toward the fighting ring. By the time you’d gotten there, B’darl had the cutie pinned to the miniature arena’s floor by the throat. Both the orloni and the f’saki had cowered back, blood-soaked and wounded, from the sudden interference in their battle-to-the-death.

Looks like you wandered outta the ring, the fucking brute had sneered.Time to go back to brawling with the other vermin, you little monster.

B’darl had lifted his other fist, easily the size of your entire head.

My money’s on the f’saki, though.

You’d surged between them without thinking, latching onto B’darl’s massive forearm, knocking his fist to one side.

You shrug. “It was worth it,” you tell Rocket mildly, and take another sip of your drink.

His eyes drop to the ring of teethmarks in your arm again. He opens his mouth to speak, and you cut in.

“My own fault,” you tell him. “I should’ve known the cutie could handle himself. I got in the way.”

You can still remember how his firelight-eyes had stared up at you from behind a mouthful of flesh and blood, stunned and maybe horrified, teeth sunk almost to the bone. In a worse timeline, maybe you’d have tried to rip your arm away. But here, in this one, you’d curled around him instinctively. Protectively.

And then he’d reached around you smoothly and snagged B’darl’s ion pistol, and you’d heard the gun go off as he’d squeezed the trigger, blind.

“My only regret is that I lost sight of him in the aftermath,” you tell him with a shrug. You try for a teasing smile but it suddenly feels strained, tense on your mouth. You’d been too flushed with adrenaline when you’d first started this conversation. Now, suddenly, the nerves are present: rattling and twitching behind your sternum. Your fingers shake a little and you clamp them onto your glass. “Didn’t even catch his name.”

He doesn’t say anything, and you squeeze your eyes shut. When you finally get the fluttering in your vagus nerve under control, you hazard a look up at him.

His eyes are on your forearm though: the circle of silken raised marks, just three shades lighter than the rest of your skin, and strangely — almost prettily — translucent. His finger reaches out: dark and clawed, his touch like warm leather. You go so still that you can’t blink, can’t even breathe as he paints a ring of warmth on your skin, looping the circlet of scars onto his fingertip like pearls threaded on a string.

The flutters are back, full-force.

Slowly, Rocket drags his gaze up to yours, sunset-eyes glowing. “Cutie works.”

@hibatasblog deserves so much more & better than this little ficlet but i am dedicating it to them anyway because they regularly call rocket "short king" and i cannot get it out of my head. deepest love to them & all their writing (please do yourselves a favor and check out their ao3 fics if you have not already)

look i just feel like (1) rocket is a cutie and if you say it in the right tone, he'll be flattered enough to not kill you and (2) there's no way he'd ever forget the stranger who jumped into a fight on his behalf — and probably got scarred for it — back before he met the guardians. which is when the og encounter takes place fyi. forget about the fact that i don't think we know if he had ever been there before gamora brought them along — i headcanon that where two or more lowlifes gather, so too there is rocket.

sidenote oh my god i literally cannot stop with the increasing wordcount. day seven (when i eventually get around to it) is gonna be SHORT. it's a promise/challenge to myself. anyway i think my writing quality peaked with machinery and i'm sorry this is so late

day five. machinery. ✷ day seven. home. rocket prompt week masterlist ✷ main masterlist rocket raccoon prompt week list

taglist ♡ @evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @glow-autumz ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @suicidalshitstick ♡ @pretty-chips

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rocketraccoonpromptweek · 3 months

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If you join in please tag any posts with #rocketraccoonpromptweek

#rocket raccoon #rocket racoon x reader #guardians of the galaxy #gotg #gotg vol 3 #gotg vol 1 #gotg vol 2 #rocket raccoon guardians #rocketraccoonpromptweek

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shelbyinubakilee · 2 months

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Prompt: machinery

Lyall’s design is a combination of her original sea otter design and the asian otter features from the film. This was done kind of as a form to relax. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

#rocketraccoonpromptweek #rocket raccoon #guardians of the galaxy #fanart #gotg fanart #lylla gotg #rocket x lylla #Machinery

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whitedragoncoranth · 2 months

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By Three...

.... Early morning on Knowhere, not quite time to get up yet, as the station's night-cycle hasn't yet turned to artificial daylight. The small apartment where you and Rocket live together is still made dim by the soft velvet purples of the station's night-lighting; you and he lazily drifting in and out of sleep. You're petting him, of course - you're the only one he allows to do so - far less nightmares and more sleep-filled nights for him and you, that way.

It's as you scratch under his chin... that he traps your questing fingers in his mouth biting gently, not breaking the skin, just a soft, gentle teething, then suckling as he p-u-u-u-r-r-r-r-s, Drax and Quill's jokes about using him to power the Milano coming full-force to the fore-front of your mind, as his purring is loud, the rumbling of a healthy engine idling, filling in the silence of the room.

The precious bebe in him must be dreaming, you think, doing your best not to laugh aloud lest you disturb and wake him. Curiously, the amazing being the asshole known as the High Evolutionary created seems to almost possess three personalities. There's the snarky, foul-mouthed Rocket, the "surface" Rocket; the being you know and love when he's fully awake. Then, there's the "child" Rocket, coming to the fore when he's alone with you, the one responsible for the nuzzling, nosing, cuddling, and snuggling Rocket seems to do when he's alone with you, bringing about your musical laughter and squeals, yet always looking at you as if to ask, 'Can I do this? Is this okay?'

The "child" never emerges fully--you suspect that if he did, there would be a lot of grief and tears as it was "child" who witnessed the death of his beloved friends; "surface" Rocket keeps him mostly reined in, and yet he's there; it's the way his eyes light up, the wag of his ringtail, the spring in his step when he wants to show you something new he's made, talking to you a million miles a minute even though you don't really understand half of what he's saying when he's showing you his latest weapon, explosive, or other invention.

And lastly... there's the younger, yet much, much older Rocket who emerges between the hours of dusk and dawn. Primal Rocket. Base animal Rocket. The persona you've taken to calling precious baby. Baby doesn't speak - you don't think he can - but he nip-nip-nippy-nips and lick-licks at your neck until you pet and pet and pet him, purring or trilling softly to you; he's the one emerged right now, chewing and suckling gently on your fingers when you scratched him under the chin, the one who lays with his head 'tween your breasts, looking at you with innocence as he soaks up your touch, pawing at your hand or nosing into your cleavage if you stop, making you laugh, drawing forth his own chitter.

You wonder privately to yourself if the three will ever become one... but even if they don't, or if his mind fractures further, he is Rocket, and no matter what happens, you'll always love and adore him. "By three he is Rocket. By three his heart opens. By your love willing he is called home. Your dearly beloved, Rocket Raccoon."

#rocket raccoon #for rfh #gotg #love #rocketraccoonpromptweek #prompt 'bite'

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raccoonfallsharder · 2 months

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rocket raccoon prompt week ✷ day seven home ✷.⁺⋆˚₊

fluff | no use of yn | gn reader | drabble | word count: 661.

Home had been a shining city on the far horizon for most of Rocket’s formative years: distant and gleaming under an impossible blossom-blue dome. Unreachable. Untouchable. He’d left any hope of it behind, a dozen cannon-shots or more before he’d ever even stepped foot off the Arête. No. Rocket had gone straight from the cages and right into his escape pod, out into a sky that had suddenly seemed much less beautiful and much more forever.

And so home had always been a far-away thing, a thing he could never go back to, a thing that — like love, like peace, like a restful night’s sleep or body that didn’t hurt — Rocket could simply never have. A thing that hadn’t been meant for him. Like the screws slowly grinding away at his bones or the muscle contractures he’s always fighting in his hips and chest, home had just become another old ache that he’d grown to barely notice, except when he’s on a planet where the weather is bad.

And then, one shift — when it was just you and him — he’d been trying to work the knots out of his shoulders. You’d reached out with dancing fingers and a query on your lips — a gentle little sound of offering — and he’d gone as still as a moon pinned between two gravity wells. Your fingers had felt light as little birds, perched on his shoulders weightlessly, and you’d guided them into a rolling series of rotations. Then you’d tugged him between your knees, and kneaded every small stone you’d found lodged under his skin and fur.

When he’d finally gone as molten and buttery as a beeswax candle on a warm day, you’d murmured another little question. He’d blinked at you blankly — completely disconnected from anything but the feel of his body, pliant for the first time in possibly his entire life — so you’d pulled him onto your lap and continued your little ministry of touch until he’d fully curled up, his tail a wreath of feathery brushes around you both. His back had pressed itself into your hands as you’d worked your thumbs into the base of his spine: freeing the tension from his hips, beckoning it out of muscle and bone, letting it dissipate into the air between your fingertips. Your hands had been so warm that even all the metal plates and bolts deep inside had suddenly felt like a part of him — had suddenly matched his own body temperature — every piece slotting together inside him with a rightness he’d never known before. The air in his lungs had turned into little pearls and gemstones, spilling up into his throat like jeweled gravel. He’d made a noise — some kind of rumble — and it had startled him until your hands had soothed over him again and you’d whispered something that had sounded like you’re just purring.

He’d never say any of this in front of the others, never let them know about this: about how soft he is for this, for the warm quiet circle of space in your arms and on your thighs. He’d never climb into your lap like this if they could see it; never make a nest out of your body-heat and burrow into the loose thick folds of your sweatshirt. He only does it on the shifts when everyone else is asleep, or planetside, or away.

It’s not that he’s ashamed. It’s just — this is something special and precious and small, and if he looks at it too closely or acknowledges it exists, he may never have it back. But for now — for these moments that he can only measure in the soft wash of his breath or the thrum of his pulse in his wrists, the steady sound of your heartbeat holding him together like gravity — for now, it’s touchable, and attainable, and real —

Moreso than any shining city on the far horizon, glimmering against the sweep of a blossom-blue ocean and a forever sky.

i did it! i brought my wordcount down! this was just a fun little exercise in writing whatever weird shit came to my mind so sorry if it makes no sense but i figured i'd indulge my inclination toward purple prose (get rekt literary critics). anyway this was fun and i am very much in favor of many future rocket raccoon prompts & prompt weeks, and thank you for creating this and bringing it to my attention, @frostedwitch ♡♡♡

i will be putting out a masterlist for this set of prompts sometime next week probably. i really hope you enjoyed reading as much as i enjoyed writing! ♡

day six. bite rocket prompt week masterlist ✷ main masterlist rocket raccoon prompt week list

taglist ♡ @evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @glow-autumz ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @suicidalshitstick ♡ @pretty-chips

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raccoonfallsharder · 2 months

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rocket raccoon prompt week ✷ day five machinery✷.⁺⋆˚₊

semi-romantic angst & fluff | no use of yn | gn reader | minific | word count: 1,946.

Ka-chunk-hnk. Ka-chunk-hnk.

Rocket scrubs his knuckles against the fur and flesh that have grown over his metal sternum. His ribs strain like creaky bellows, lungs splitting and bruising against the bones. It’s been like this sometimes, since before he can remember — but lately it’s a chronic condition.

Ever since the High Evolutionary’s voice had echoed over the comms on the Bowie, lethal and shrill.

Rocket sits at a table across the street from Nebula’s offices, and waits. His fingers drum on the pretty, dusty mosaic surface.

Ka-chunk-hnk. Ka-chunk-hnk.

You step out of the doorway, back arching as you stretch. Nebs must’ve had you hunched over datascreens all day — a waste of eye candy, he’d think, if he’d let himself tap too far into his old jackass-habits. Not that it matters — he’s already been preparing to be an absolute, unforgivable dickhead to you, ever since he woke up the rotation before last and decided he couldn’t bear the sound of it anymore.

Ka-chunk-hnk. Ka-chunk-hnk.

“Hey,” he calls out, voice low and carrying. “You. New kid. Buttercup.”

Your eyes swivel, wide and startled. Shimmery. He kinda hates that about you, except no he doesn’t. He scowls when you look at him and tap your chest, brow creasing in confusion. Who, me? he imagines you uttering, voice perplexed.

Yeah. You.

He points at you with two fingers, then slashes them toward the chair opposite him. He can see you hesitate — then you’re drifting across the street like a leaf in a stream, eddying around little obstacles and whirlpools as they arise. It takes too long, but you’re finally sinking into the seat across from him.

“Captain?” you say politely, and he tries to hide his scoff. Nothing says new kid on Knowhere quite like deference. Still, it’ll be useful for him today.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “I gotta job for you.”

You blink those gorgeous eyes of yours. “Me?”

He rolls his eyes and tries not to let himself feel bad about exploiting you — all that kindness, that generosity, sitting right there on the surface, ripe for manipulation. “I need you to get me something outta Pete’s old place.”

You blink those starry eyes again. He really needs you to stop doing that, ‘cause it’s killing him. “Pe — Star-Lord’s apartment?”

He grunts and flicks his eyes back towards Nebula’s door. “Yup.” He lingers on the y, and pops the p. “Super-confidential, very-official, super-frickin’-secret Guardians-mission. Can you do it?”

“I — what do you want me to do?”

Ka-chunk-hnk. Ka-chunk-hnk.

And this is how you end up slipping through the barely open door of the legendary, absentee Star-Lord’s bedroom: all for a captain with pretty, heartbreaking almandine eyes.

You’re such a sap.

But Rocket had given you an override hex for Peter Quill’s rooms, and you don’t see how you can refuse him anything, so in you go, even though you know he’s fucking lying about — well, everything related to this so-called mission, you’re sure. No-one has touched this room since Star-Lord left a few cycles before you’d arrived — other than to fix the Warlock-shaped hole in the wall and window, anyway. Kraglin, Groot, and Nebula all insist he’ll be back soon, and so the apartment remains as he’d left it.

You glance around, and sure enough, there’s the treasure Rocket had sent you to find, sitting on a rickety high shelf: a dense ball of bulging white tissue, pressed like dough into a silvery, skeletal cage.

You pick up the sphere. It’s heavy in your hand, like it has its own field of gravity — and you suppose, in a way, it does. Turning it, you recognize the OrgoCorps logo, and it’s the final confirmation you need. You slide the sphere into the pouch on your belt, and you slip from the room, shutting the door behind you.

“Don’t let Nebs see you,” Rocket had warned. “Don’t let anybody see you.” He’d muttered something your translation chip had haltingly tried to identify as fuckin’ narks. “She’ll be all over my ass if she finds out.” He’d looked up at you, those almandine eyes suddenly narrowing shrewdly, and had said, “You understand what I’m asking you to do, right? You’re the frickin’ fall-guy.”

“Got it,” you’d said mildly, unbothered. So now here you are, tapping with raindrop-light fingers on Rocket’s apartment door. It swings open and you slide in off the street seamlessly, and he’s got his hand in the pouch at your hip before the door’s even closed behind you.

You jolt at the brush of heat and his intrusive nearness, but he’s already got the record-sphere in his hand, turning his back to you and striding toward the… bed? It’s a slab of cold metal with a ragged blanket and no pillows, and you do a double-take around the room. Nope, that’s definitely the closest thing the poor guy has to a bed.

The Captain’s fucking miserable.

Still, you’ve decided that light-hearted sarcasm is the best way to engage for now.

“Geez,” you snip playfully. “Buy a person dinner first.”

He startles, tossing you a wide-eyed look over his shoulder that’s too shocked and vulnerable to allow you any satisfaction. But then he rolls his eyes and huffs out a disgruntled sound of annoyance, and begins connecting the ball of white tissue to a handful of datapads and small machines he’s got set on the bed.

“Sit,” he rumbles with a gesture at the hunk of scrapmetal masquerading as a mattress. He already got his eyes locked on the numbers and letters as they scroll up on the screens, and he’s glaring at them mutinously. “Or get out.”

You hesitate. But the fact that he’s opened a spot for you in his apartment at all feels like an indicator that he doesn’t want to be alone, even if he’s too frightened to bring any of… whatever-this-is to his friends. Instead, he stands beside the bed, typing shit into his datapads and screens, and you perch on the spot beside them, facing him. You take him in as he works: the furrowed brow, and the crinkles along the sides of his nose as he tries not to grimace or snarl. His ears — one alert and forward-facing, and the other swiveled into a half-flattened scrap of fur and flesh. Even his tail looks a different than usual: tensed and bristling, tucked tight against his inner calf.

“There it is,” he mutters, and his eyes scan the screen. They jump and widen, then scan again. His brow drops and now both ears lay flat, and he reads it all again. The fur on his neck and the backs of his forearms rises.

Then he hisses a curse that the translator can’t pick up at all this time, and he shoves himself away from the screens, pacing back and forth in front of you thrice before throwing himself onto the bed at your other side. Your eyes follow him, wide and startled, as he keeps up the steady stream of indecipherable swearing.

Slowly— cautiously — you turn sideways, pulling one leg onto the bed with you, away from the pile of ramshackle tech so you can study him while you chew your lip. You want to ask what it is he’s discovered, and if he’s okay — but the words stay trapped in your throat, meaningless and hollow. You hesitate, and then sigh, and lower yourself onto your back beside him.

The two of you stare up at the ceiling for what feels like ages. Outside, the lights of Knowhere grow gold, signaling the end of the second wake-shift. Topaz light slants in through the frosted windows at the head of the bed.

“Your bed is a chiropractic nightmare,” you say after a moment, and he whuffs a startled laugh.

Silence falls again, but it feels easier, curling comfortingly into all the crevices of the room. Maybe it’s because of your comment, or maybe it’s because you aren’t looking at each other. Maybe it’s because you’re no-one at all to him — just Buttercup, the New Kid, Hey You.

But he speaks.

“Ever since — ever since we got back,” he mutters. “Ever since the Arête — my heart’s been acting weird. I thought maybe it was — I thought maybe it had been injured worse that we realized, or maybe—“

His voice crackles away, and you don’t chase it. You just wait in the fake sunset-light, watching it warm the shadows.

“It sounds awful,” he says at last. “Like, yours—“ he lifts a hand above you both and taps out a rhythm on the air with deft fingers. “—thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.” You can hear the grimace in his mouth. “That’s a good heart. That’s a healthy, normal-person heart. But mine—“ He curls his clawed fingers into a strangling fist, and twists viciously. “Ka-chunk-hnk. Ka-chunk-hnk.”

He drops his hand to his abdomen.

“It’s not fuckin’ good,” he mutters, and his voice is so desolate that your belly suddenly twists and that space behind your eyes tightens. “It’s not… I always knew it didn’t work right.” He makes a tortured noise in his throat that sounds like it’s trying to be a laugh. “But the records say everything’s operating like it should be, so I guess I’m just a messed-up little—“

You roll suddenly. If you’d been thinking clearly, you never would’ve moved so quickly, and later you’ll be grateful that he didn’t lash out at you with startled, defensive claws. But all you can think is to offer him some sort of solace, some sort of peace.

So you press your ear to his chest.

On the other side of the Indigarran cotton, you feel heat and fur, flesh and metal. He stiffens— frozen beneath you, and then shivering with an uncertainty you’re sure he’d never let show on his face. He smells like fireworks and whiskey and forests in late autumn, and beyond that — a touch or two faster than yours — you can feel the quiet thump of his heart. It’s a little quicker and jumpier than you’d expected, but the longer you lay with your cheek to his chest, the steadier it grows.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

“It sounds like a good heart to me,” you murmur. “I don’t hear what you hear in it — not at all.”

There’s a crackling, staticky quiet, and then he makes a wounded little sound deep in his chest, and you feel it rumble up under your cheek. His hand shifts from his abdomen and his fingers are suddenly cradling the back of your head, holding you against him.

“You don’t hear it?” His voice is agonized. Desperate. “You really don’t—?”

You can’t shake your head with the way he’s wrapped around you, his other arm coming up to join the first, almost clinging. And you — well, you don’t want to give him any reason to think that you’re not perfectly content to stay like this. “Definitely not,” you tell him. “I’m no doctor, of course, but — it sounds beautiful to me. It sounds like it works far better than you ever realized.”

Your head shifts as he lets out an exhalation so long and splintered that you suddenly wonder if he’s been holding his breath ever since he got back from CounterEarth.

“I thought—“ His words are all hushed and creased, puffing into the air and then tumbling to the metal cot around you like crumpled balls of paper. “I thought maybe it wasn’t a real heart,” he says raggedly. “I thought maybe it was just a — a broken machine.”

You pull your own hand out from beneath you, and you tap out the rhythm just below his collarbone.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

“I promise,” you tell him softly. “I can feel it. It’s real.”

lol whatever i'm under 2k words sooooo i am still very cool. (this was a scene i'd had in my brain for like six months. it's the core component of the oneshot i was writing called real but thanks to this "drabble" (i don't think 2k counts as a drabble whateverrrr) i have a new title in mind (broken machinery) and at least part of the main scene written so YAY

day four. family ✷ day six. bite rocket prompt week masterlist ✷ main masterlist rocket raccoon prompt week list

taglist ♡ @evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @glow-autumz ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @suicidalshitstick ♡ @pretty-chips

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raccoonfallsharder · 2 months

Text

rocket raccoon prompt week ✷ day three emotionalistic ✷.⁺⋆˚₊

fluff | no use of yn | gn reader | drabble | word count: 570.

There are only a few hours, pinned somewhere deep in the sleep shift right before Knowhere’s artificial dawn, that the streets are relatively empty and quiet. Rocket’s sleep schedule is erratic at best, but you know — of all the times in the rotation — this is when he’s most likely to be awake.

You find him out on the observation deck, alone — perched with his feet hanging over the ledge, only an arm span from the intangible barrier that shields the entire city and its manufactured atmosphere from the inhospitable void of space. It’s like a bubble, you think — protecting everything inside.

You don’t try to quiet your footsteps, knowing Rocket can probably identify you by your stride alone, and by the smell of your hair. The tempo of your heart, even — at least from this distance. And any effort to be quiet would only raise his hackles, ping those deeply-hidden instincts of his that are always on the alert for bigger predators.

“Hey, stranger,” you say instead, and lower yourself to the ledge beside him. You’re not quite brave enough or foolish enough to hang your feet off the edge with him — you’re not sure how the fabricated gravity would work in this situation, but you know the vertigo is real.

“Hey,” he grunts, and takes a swallow of the blubber ale he’s been nursing since Mantlo’s closed a couple hours earlier. Wordlessly, he offers you the bottle, and you tilt your head before accepting.

You regret it immediately.

“What the fuck is that? Battery acid?”

He snickers but doesn’t say anything, accepting the bottle back one-handedly — burning red eyes still locked on a distant asterism. Minutes tread past on whisper-soft feet. Silently, the two of you watch the stars swirl by: the sweeping clouds of stardust, the quiet moons.

“Why’re you here?” he rasps at last. His voice brushes against the sky: velvet on velvet, broken only by a scattering of crushed-up diamond dust.

You shrug. “Thought you might be lonely.”

He snorts, and the sound is bitter. “Only when I’m breathing.”

“Mm,” you acknowledge, trying not to show him the twist in your ribs at his response. “Well, then. I guess I’ll keep trying to keep you company, if you keep trying to keep breathing.”

He tilts his head and leans against the lower railing. “Only if you bring drinks next time.”

“Sure,” you say easily. “I’d better. Otherwise we’re just gonna end up punishing ourselves with blubber ale.”

He huffs something close to a laugh, except it sounds like it hurts.

The silence grows, and the quiet of the dark sky curls into your bones. There’s the muted slosh of Rocket’s drink, and the occasional clink of his claws on the glass. An hour passes — maybe more — and he makes a stifled little sound, so deep behind his collarbones that you’re not even sure he knows it’s escaped. You cast a sideways glance at him, and you can see the silvering on the rim of his eyes, the glassy tracks of tears underneath his fur: gleaming rivers in nighttime forests.

His eyes slant up to yours, and he winces when he sees you noticing. But you don’t say anything. You only lean back on your hands and sway to one side, bumping his shoulder gently with your warm upper arm, creating a little intangible barrier of your own — a bubble around you and Rocket, protecting everything inside.

for the first time in the history of the universe my word count went down between prompts. holy shit

day two. hurts. ✷ day four. family.rocket prompt week masterlist ✷ main masterlistrocket raccoon prompt week list

taglist ♡ @evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @glow-autumz ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @suicidalshitstick ♡ @pretty-chips

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shelbyinubakilee · 2 months

Text

Prompt: Family

I just kind of went crazy on this one. I’ll probably still make some doubles of these prompts even after March 10th.

Hope everyone has a happy weekend!

#rocketraccoonpromptweek #guardians of the galaxy #fanart #gotg fanart #Teef #floor #rocket #lylla #Prompt #family #rocket raccoon

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raccoonfallsharder · 2 months

Text

rocket raccoon prompt week ✷ day four family✷.⁺⋆˚₊

semi-romantic fluff | no use of yn | gn reader | minific | word count: 1,274.

The artificial daylight of Knowhere has gone from bright and pearly to bronze and slanted, and now it’s finally sunk low in velvet purples. The Star Kids don’t really have bedtimes because every adult here is a frickin’ pushover, so they’re dancing under the sleep-shift sky, all spangled and studded with tiny plasma orbs jingling on strings over the streets, glowing like warm white moons.

It’s not an uncommon part of life on Knowhere — not anymore. Neither is the heartwrenchingly light laughter ringing out from the streets, from the rooftop bars, and from the second level of Mantlo’s, where the usual poker players have meandered out to the mezzanine in order to watch the celebration.

Rocket leans back against the step where he’s slouched: tail flicking peacefully, ears swiveling to follow the sounds, nose twitching. The Star Kids smell like Indigarran peaches and moonlight, and there are lingering curls of Contraxian tobacco and Ssssaralami’s moonshine. The spiced fragrance of grilled orloni and yaro-stuffed pastries fill the streets. It’s all overlaid by a sugary scent: the bastardized Luphomoid honeycakes that you’d helped Nebula resurrect from her childhood, just especially for today.

Nobody knows when the Star Kids were born — if they were born at all — but you’d insisted there needed to be something to mark a birthday of sorts.

Children need celebrations, you’d told him and Nebs one night over drinks, and Drax the Dad had enthusiastically concurred. And so this — the anniversary of the liberation of the Arête, of the children’s arrival on Knowhere — has suddenly become some sort of festival, some sort of revelry. Nearly every citizen of Knowhere is out on the streets: eating, dancing, singing, chattering. Ruffling the childrens’ hair. Steemie Blueliver has come down from the mezzanine, and the Star Kids take turns flipping themselves over his tree-trunk arms or letting him spin them over his head. Mantis had come back to visit — just for this, from the frickin’ ass-end of the universe — and she’d picked up Pete while she was at it. Both of them are laughing with Nebs and Kraglin, while Cosmo barks and prances in the center of a bright ring of giggling kids. A cluster of raccoons from the Arête watch from the rooftop of the laundromat: still young, but no longer babies. Their fur is glossy and their bodies are soft and round, and they keep an eye out for dropped street-food.

And the music — the music is alive. It floats down the insides of Rocket’s bones: sweet and sparkling with little bubbles, like carbonated wine.

Rocket takes another mouthful of his fruit-flavored milky-fizz — spiked with something you’d sneaked him before the festivities; you’d told him it was strawberry schnapps — and he watches.

He catches it: the moment you clock him there on the steps. Your eyes crinkle at the corners when you smile, and it looks like you’ve got stardust in your lashes. You’re talking to Hoobtoe and Phloko, but you’ve only got eyes for him — warm, and inviting. He tilts his plastic carton toward you in a mockery of a toast, then clamps his teeth onto the straw and takes another sip. The skull’s ventilation systems kick on and a breeze sweeps delicately through the streets, teasing the scents of food and booze, and playing with the fibrous platinum strands of the Star Kids’ hair. Each child’s head is gleaming: pale and reflecting back dapples of radiance. Rocket swears that everywhere he looks — the tiny candles on the honeycakes, the plasma-orb string-lights, the wide eyes of the kids, and you — he can see halos and rays of light. Soft starbursts, and luminous, hazy hexagons. Little motes of crushed-up bone-dust, dancing in and out of the shadows like antigravity glitter.

A little curl of concern shows between your brows as you toss him another glance — he’d guess it’s hard for you to read him right now, because his eyeshine is probably throwing all that gorgeous light back at you. Like rubies, you’d told him once, which had probably been when he’d first started falling in love with you, if he’s being honest. Now, dazzling in the gold and shadow, you laugh at something Hoobtoe says, and you pat Phloko’s shoulder before weaving away from them — smiling at Xlomo Smeth and Ssssaralami, nodding your greetings while you walk past. You pause at the little table still stacked high with honeycakes.

And then make your way toward Rocket.

You tuck yourself next to him on the step, even when he doesn’t move — content to stay half-sprawled next to you, his arm draped casually across the stair behind your back. He looks up at you with his ruby-eyes, and then down at the honeycake in your hands. It’s got one of those teeny candles in it, lit up like a piece of amber held to the sun. You’re glowing in the gold of it, warm and apple-cheeked — eyes all glimmery, just for him.

“You okay?” you ask carefully.

He turns his eyes back to the streets so his heart doesn’t fall apart like the overblown petals of an autumn flower in his chest. The scene there doesn’t help though: everything is as warm as fresh-baked bread. Groot’s joined Steemie, tossing the kids in the air. Even Howard’s come down from the mezzanine, awkwardly patting the head of a child who’s taller than he is, while he tries to protect his cocktail from the jumble of bodies. Rocket eyes him, then snorts and shakes his head. A soft huff leaves his mouth: too short to be a chuckle, too affectionate to be a scoff.

“I’m good,” he rasps out. “Just thinkin’.”

“About what?”

The corner of his mouth curves in a perplexed, uncertain little smile, like his head hasn’t caught up with the rest of reality. “‘Bout how I used to think I wanted to be alone.”

He sips his milky-fizz. The strawberry schnapps warm his belly. Howard would love this shit, Rocket thinks.

He reminds himself not to let the guy near it.

“Why’d you bring that over?” he asks, nodding at the candlelit honeycake cupped in your palms.

You reach toward him with it, lifting it for him: a sugar-sweet little offering. “Today is your day, too, you know.”

He blinks up at you, a protest filling his mouth before he pauses and tilts his head consideringly.

He supposes you’re right. He supposes he had been trapped on the Arête, for far longer than he’d realized.

“Okay,” he says mildly, and he can see the way you startle at how agreeable he sounds right now. He shrugs, sets down the milky-fizz on the step between his feet, and takes the cake in his hand. “What’s with the candle?”

“Pete brought them,” you tell him. “It’s a birthday tradition on Terra. A candle for every year.” You smile at him. “When you blow it out, you make a wish.”

He looks up at you, and then out at the wide glimmering lake of people, all shadow and shimmer. He turns the golden cake in his hand like he’s studying it: trying to read something in the fruit-infused icing and the amber-glow flame. Then he turns his eyes out again to the people of Knowhere: music and mirth and the joy of belonging. And from this angle — up close, and unhidden by eyeshine — you can see the moment when ironic amusement turns into something just a shade off of wonder.

His fingers are usually so quick you can barely follow them — but now he reaches up with his other hand, almost lazily, and casually pinches out the wisp of candleflame.

“I think I’m good on wishes, actually.”

there's that critical mass word-count. i personally think it is very cool of me that i took till thursday to break a thousand.

day three. emotionalistic ✷ day five. machinery rocket prompt week masterlist ✷ main masterlist rocket raccoon prompt week list

taglist ♡ @evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @glow-autumz ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @suicidalshitstick ♡ @pretty-chips

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raccoonfallsharder · 2 months

Text

rocket raccoon prompt week ✷ day two hurts ✷.⁺⋆˚₊

fluff | no use of yn | gn reader | drabble | word count: 626.

The frickin' Badoon fleet might've lost the battle, but they'd sure as shit beat the hell out of the Guardians while they were doing it. Rocket looks blearily around at the group, counting heads again just to make sure: Pete's got two black eyes and is trying to patch up a scrape on the back of his sister's shoulder that looks like ground-up orloni. Groot's sitting with his head bowed, elbows anchored to knees. He's got the laser burn kit next to him, waiting for Gamora. The Zen-Whoberi in question is currently busy trying to wrestle a medpack onto Drax's broken ribs, but the big idiot is such a frickin' baby that he keeps whining and trying to twist away, only to end up wheezing.

But where's the fuckin' new kid? Where are you?

Rocket's heart clenches up and twists and his bright eyes go wide suddenly, nose up and searching, ears alert. He could've sworn he'd seen you—

"Hey."

He deflates, the brief resurgence of adrenaline enough to make him suddenly want to puke all over the grated floors of the Bowie. "Dammit. Where'd you go?"

You circle around from behind him, a white cloth in your hand. Your voice is frayed and tattered by exhaustion, and you're bruised and scraped as hell, but his eyes stick to every square inch of you that he can see, and it doesn't look like you've got any major injuries.

You toss a tired glance over your shoulder and take in the scene behind you — a misshapen crescent of wounded Guardians. They'll be all right. But the guy in front of you? Him, you’re far less certain about. He's shaking — shuddering — like all his bones and implants are gonna rattle right out of his body. His eyes flick over you again, looking for an injury, looking for the clean scorched hole of a laser pistol shot right through the heart — then they scrape back over his friends, cataloging and re-cataloging every open wound, every minor bruise. His stare returns to you once more, and the cycle repeats. Rocket's got a head wound he probably doesn't even notice — blood black and sticky, clotting in his fur before it ever reaches his eyes. It's the whole reason you'd gone back to the linen locker and the sink in the first place.

You plant yourself between him and his friends, a barricade for his eyes, and he tries to lean around you without thinking about it — trying to keep all of you in his line of vision.

"They’re okay, friend," you say softly. "Don't let them scare you."

His eyes snap to yours, stunned and wide. It's a look you've never seen on his face before: vulnerable, bereft. The bright, glowing red of his gaze had always seemed like a stop light, but now —

You try to ignore it. You're sure he wouldn't want you to notice. Instead, you reach out with the cloth, still warm from the hot water you'd soaked it in, and touch it carefully to the crown of his head. The wet white fabric turns to rust: blood soaking up into the fibers.

Rocket stares up at you like you're a ghost. He knows there’s no way you could possibly know that those words and this gesture are so close to another’s, just the slight tonal shift of a voice echoing off a lifetime’s worth of vast, empty mountain expanse; there’s no way you could know how deeply that moment is carved on his makeshift heart — rising to the surface right now, in this second, with you. "It's okay," you tell him gently, tenderly pressing the soft cloth to his bloodied fur. You hope he knows you're not talking about the head wound. "You're gonna be okay."

not me watching my wordcount trend upward. i am trying to fucken control myself.

anyway i hope you enjoyed, my little daffodils

day one. explosives.✷ day three. emotionalistic. rocket prompt week masterlist ✷ main masterlist rocket raccoon prompt week list

taglist ♡ @evolvingchaoswitch ♡ @glow-autumz ♡ @wren-phoenix ♡ @suicidalshitstick ♡ @pretty-chips

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