Still own an imagination and a heart that loves Guardians of the Galaxy, but nothing else.

Set sometime after the movie.

The water ran between the dry cracks in his skin, washing off everything except the one thing he tried to rid himself of. He felt his forearm slip against the shower wall, slick with hot water and steam, but readjusted it before pinning it there with his forehead. He opened his eyes despite the rivulets of shower water running down his face and watched the blood and dirt falling off of him swirl at the drain.

"We're gonna bleed you, boy!"

He jumped with the jolt of his heart, arm slipping once more causing his head to collide with the shower wall just enough to make "Shit," run off his tongue. He caught himself, both hands splayed out on the tile in front of him as he attempted to steal his breath back from the harsh memory that stole it from him.

One of Thanos' goons stood over his restrained form, ready to make him suffer just as those whose blood shed before him. He could only look on, writhe, and scream between the cracks of bolts and metal securing his mouth shut as he was tortured in an attempt to make Gamora and the rest of the Guardians return from where they had escaped.

He had only just stopped screaming when the goon leaned down with a shit-eating grin too wide for someone so halfwitted. "Finally realized that they can't-...won't save you?"

A knock, however small, was forceful at the bathroom door. He opened his eyes he hadn't realized he had closed and rubbed at his face. "Yeah?"

"Quill, you jerkin' off in there, or is something wrong? Okay, there's something wrong with that, but I mean other than givin' yourself a good time, you okay," Rocket's voice filtered through the door.

Peter groaned inwardly and scrubbed at his scalp one last time underneath the hot water before turning it off. "No, Rocket. I'm good."

"I bet you are," came the annoyed reply before the small fist hit he door once more. "Hurry up, then will ya? Just cause I'm not human like you doesn't mean I wanna stink like the rest of these freaks."

Peter wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the door, "Ya know, if you don't like being called rodent, why are you gonna call everybody else freaks?"

Looking up at him, Rocket replied, "It's a term of endearment," with just a bit of a tone that sounded like he was hoping Quill believed him and a look on his face like he'd never seen Quill before, or any human for that matter.

"No, it's not, " Peter shook his head, a bit cautiously, and made to move back towards his room. "Now, what's your problem? You're not checking me out, are you? That'd be weird."

"Is that what they did to you," came Rocket's soft inquiry and when Peter turned to look at him, he wasn't entirely sure that it was the same raccoon he'd been talking to seconds before. Rocket looked troubled, hands working over each other as he looked at his teammate's injuries.

"Uh," Peter swallowed, now a bit self-conscious, "yeah, but, uh,... it's nothing. We've had worse, right?"

"We have. Have you?" Rocket swallowed and took a step forward, eyes still on the large healing gashes and bruises covering Quill's body.

"I have now. Listen, it's no big deal," the man said, turning back to head to his room, only to be stopped once again by the raccoon, but this time it was because he was yelling.

"No big- no big deal? So getting tortured is no big deal," Rocket began demanding, tail getting bushy and ears rearing back with arms flying defensively.

"I didn't mean it like that. Okay, Rocket?" Peter called over his shoulder as he entered his room, not bothering to shut the door, because he could hear the animal's small feet following behind him on the floor.

He pulled on some boxers and a pair of jeans, knowing full well Rocket wasn't watching for the way he kept moving while giving him what for. "Just because I'm this so called raccoon thing you keep going on about, doesn't mean I can't take getting a few things plunged into me, ya know! You're no better than-"

"Rocket." Quill demanded, pulling a t-shirt over his head and catching his furry teammate's eyes. "I know you can, buddy. Really. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant...nothing to be worried about."

"Worried?" Rocket crossed his arms and tilted his head back with an eye roll. "Who said anything about being worried?"

Quill raised an eyebrow at him and offered him a grin. "Rocket, we've been tuning out the 'I don't care' speech for months now. You-"

"Obviously," muttered Rocket.

"Okay, so you're not worried. Then, what're you still doing here?"

Rocket faltered a bit, "I...needed the shower. I already told ya."

Quill motioned towards the clock on the wall, "Could've been in there for the past five minutes."

"Well-," Rocket broke off, trying to think of something, "you probably used all the hot water, so I'm just going ahead and busting your balls about it now, so I don't have to later."

Quill, already shaking his head and picking up his walkman, poked a hole in Rocket's lie, "You hadn't said the first thing about it until now."

"Ahh," Rocket growled, and left the room, trying to ignore Peter following behind him. "I'm gettin' in the shower and if you value that contraption, don't bother me," he said over his shoulder and motioned towards Quill's walkman, but just as he was three feet away from the bathroom, Drax stepped in and shut the door. Both Quill and Rocket heard the lock slide into place before the raccoon tore at the door with claws and all.

"Be out after I shower," Drax called with no idea why Rocket was so mad.

Rocket turned to glare at Quill who grinned in return, but motioned for the animal to follow him. Rocket growled again, but did so.

Quill flew Milano, happy for the distraction, as Rocket sat beside him in the passenger seat while tinkering with some spare parts he had found lying around.

"You're right. It's no big deal," Rocket suddenly said, voice just loud enough to hear over the music playing through his headphones.

Quill was surprised he spoke at all since he was still fuming over Drax beating him to the shower, and took off his headphones. "What do you mean?"

"You. Being tortured. No big deal," Rocket replied, not taking his eyes off his work.

"Oh," Quill said eventually, a little disappointed by it if he was honest.

A few minutes passed and Rocket's voice filtered through the ship again, "Isn't this the part where you ask why?"

Quill blinked at him, then tried to appear dismissive by shrugging his shoulders, "Why?"

Rocket's ears perked up when something clicked into place on the thing he was building, and he seemed to be too distracted by that to answer until he said, "Because you at least knew that we were going to save you."

Quill was too shocked to say anything, and instead pretended to be busy fooling with the ship's controls while he processed the fact that Rocket was indeed right, and that the animal had used the word 'we' meaning he himself was involved.

"I didn't get that luxury," Rocket's soft voice spoke as he finished completing his contraption, but this time his ears didn't perk up and he tossed it carelessly and uninterestedly behind him. Quill managed to hide the flinch he felt because Rocket was known for building bombs, but relaxed when nothing exploded.

Peter didn't know what to say except, "Well, now you do," before he turned up the radio on Milano so that music would play just loud enough to cover up the awkward silence between them.

Rocket glanced at him, long and hard, before his ears twitched like they did when he successfully created a bomb that would destroy half an army, or just one ship. Quill watched happily from the corner of his eye as his friend picked up his previously discarded invention and began tinkering with it with much more fervor than before.

That was until Drax appeared a few minutes later saying, "Rocket, don't you know there are two showers on the ship?"

AN: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think!