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There are a few things Rocket can remember with a startling clarity that might confuse anyone who doesn’t know the intricacies of his past:
He remembers the tender touch of a bit of damp fabric pressed to the seam of his bleeding skull: a blessing and a kindness bestowed on him by his very first friend.
He remembers the texture and scent of Floor’s fur.
He remembers his first time sleeping in a bed.
He remembers the loving brush of Groot’s twiglike vines against the fur of his cheek, and the careful and comforting stroke Drax had pressed between his ears after the other had died.
Rocket remembers every hug his weird pack of morons has ever given him.
It’s not that he means to keep a catalogue, exactly. It’s just that Rocket doesn’t get many soft things in his life.
And look, it’s not the first time he’s accidentally caught a fellow crew member in a state of undress. It just happens when you’re living on a ship together, even one as big as the Bowie. The showers are communal and sometimes you don’t expect someone to walk in on you. He’s probably seen almost every one of his family members in some unremarkable unclothed moment or another.
And these encounters have always been exactly that: unremarkable. Just a weird fact of life when eighty percent of your time is spent starside. Unlike these handful of other, softer memories, each of these interactions have been deeply forgettable.
And then - you.
You.
New girl on the team.
He hasn’t quite figured out how to fit you in. Everyone else makes sense: Nebula’s as much his brother as Pete is. Mantis reminds him of Floor so much that it hurts sometimes. Rocket’s never had a cousin, but he imagines Drax and Kraglin fit the bill.
Now he’s five rotations into dealing with you, and he can’t figure out if you’re all right, or if you’re the most annoying frickin’ inconvenience of his goddamn life.
You just don’t feel like anything he’s ever had around before. You’re capable, first of all. Competent. A quick learner. Always willing to do the jobs no-one else wants to, and honest, but nice - so nice that it had taken him a full three rotations just to realize it was genuine.
Whatever it is you are, it ain’t a sibling or a cousin.
To be honest, the uncertainty sets Rocket’s sharp teeth right on edge. His skin is constantly buzzing: fur raised, ears twitching, fists curled. Even Drax has commented on it. Pete’s glared at him and pulled him aside to accuse him - in frustrated whispers - of being almost as much of a jackass as he’d been before Ego.
And then he’d fuckin’ walked in on you.
He can’t even frickin’ blame you. Though of course he does: loudly, furiously, littered with worse curses than he’s used since Groot first started to understand language. The whole family had heard him berating you.
But it’s not your fault. It’s not even like you’d been out in the central shower chamber getting dressed - a mistake he’d forgiven Kraglin, Mantis, Drax, and Pete for at various points, sometimes more than once. No. This had only been because he’d been so distracted thinking about the problem of you - and you’d been so surprisingly quiet - that he’d walked right into your stall, nearly hitting you with the door.
You’d both frozen - you with those big eyes, the shower-damp lashes clustered into stars, pupils dilated in the quarter-dimmed lighting. You’d been toweling off: hair gleaming and heavy with water, skin dripping with fat wet diamonds and stardust. Half-bent at the waist, you’d been drying your slippery-sleek legs with a pitiful scrap of terrycloth that somehow puddled over your plump thighs just enough to mercifully hide your cunt from view - but the way you’d been leaning had your tits squeezed gently between your upper arms, pillowed up against them just a little, and he’d found himself damn-near eye-level with the softest-looking tits and prettiest, rosiest nipples he’s ever frickin’ seen in his miserable joke of a life.
You’d squeaked, pulling back and scooping one arm across your chest while you’d clutched the towel in front of your hips - but to be honest, your shielding forearm had done nothing to protect you from his shocked, panicked stare. He’d still been able to see an impressive amount of satin-soft blushing areola, and the memory of those little pink pearls had already been pressed lovingly into his brain.
He’d backpedaled so hard out of the shower he’d nearly lost his footing on the tile, rear claws scrabbling to keep himself upright so he wouldn’t crack the back of his skull on the floor. The stall door had swung shut with a dull bang, and having you out of his line of sight had somehow reset his brain.
That’s when he’d started cursing you out.
You’d looked so alarmed - way more alarmed by his yelling than by him walking in on you, he thinks now. He’d slammed every door on his way out, calling you more names than he’s called anyone in years - combined - just trying to get as far away from you and those fuckin’ gorgeous tits as possible. Since then, he’s spent the rest of the day snarling at anyone who crosses his path and trying - failing - to distract himself with complex repairs and new-concept bombs.
In short, he’s been an absolute dickhead.
But every time he’s tried to relax, or accidentally allowed his mind to wander, it’s found its way back to the showers and your damp breasts, water drops still clinging to the trembling heat-flushed curve of them.
He hasn’t been able to get them out of his head.
He wants them in his mouth. He wants them in his hands. He wants to curl his fingers into that sweet little pussy you’d had hidden behind your towel - like it could’ve protected you if he’d decided to come for you anyway - and smear his dick with all the slippery wetness he’d wanted to make sure you were leaking everywhere, then play with your nipples while he pumps himself between the pillowy softness of your breasts.
They’d looked so fuckin’ soft. He thinks he could play with them for hours. If he got you down on your knees, he could probably use them however he wanted.
Yeah. He could. And he’d want to, so badly.
Rocket doesn’t get many soft things in his life.
He gives up on the idea of dinner, on the idea of being anywhere near anyone. Drax has only started cooking for the family when Rocket stalks past him in the kitchen, grabbing some zargnuts and one of the pint-jars of yaro root moonshine he’d picked up last time they were on Contraxia.
He’s done with people for today. Done trying to talk his dick down. Instead, he heads to his bunk, brow stormy and ominous.
As soon as the door’s closed behind him, he’s throwing his makeshift meal onto his workbench and peeling off his jumpsuit. Why’s this frickin’ thing have so many damn buckles, anyway? Normally he’s meticulous with his shit - every bomb has its box and you can’t afford to leave a room messy when you’re working with highly volatile explosives and tiny little chips and wires - but he sinks onto the low mattress that serves as his bed without bothering to do more than kick the fuckin’ jumpsuit into a corner.
The minute he wraps his hand around his dick, he breathes easier. Maybe he shouldn’t be thinking about you - imagining you - like this, but he’s not sure he can stop himself if he tries. He pictures you looking down at him again with those surprised, dewy-soft eyes, lips trembling - and then maybe curving into a smile.
Sultry. Eager.
Just for him.
One of your hands might release the towel, letting the pile of cloth slip teasingly when you open your palm and reach for him.
The idea of it snaps something in him. He sees himself crowding into the stall with you, hands sliding up under your towel. Startling you with a thumb to your shower-damp clit, zeroing in on you with a light, deliberate flick. Even though you’d invited him, it would startle you: that fuckin’ squeak tripping out over your lips, breathy and nervous. You might slip on the wet tile and your feet would slide out from under you, and you’d collide with the corner-wall and crash hard onto your ass with a little cry. The impact probably thuds right up through your aching core.
You're okay - flushed with embarrassment, maybe, you pretty, clumsy little slut - but your ass and pussy sting.
Rocket probably wouldn’t give you time to think about it, though, because those tits are perfectly in reach. He imagines knocking his foot against the inside of your bent knees - just hard enough to say open up - and your towel slipping to one thigh, exposing your pretty clit. You shiver, but he’s already skating his claws over your breasts: letting them prickle over your areolas. You gasp, suddenly nervous - as you fuckin’ should be; his claws are sharp - but the threat of it and the feel of it on your soft, soft skin makes those pretty little nipples stiffen further, begging for attention.
And since he’s trying to be such a frickin’ gentleman these days, he obliges: a careful, tender stroke to each sweet, rosy tip with light and nimble fingertips - followed by an almost-mean pinch that has you squealing, your pretty legs jerking on either side of him. Your hands fly to his wrists like little birds, clinging to him for support, for something to anchor you against the wash of heat radiating from his grip. He won’t let go though: not till he has your back arching off the wall, your pussy pressed to the top of his foot as you try to buy yourself some release from the pressure.
Then he eases up, nice and slow and careful, letting your back shift softly into a more-natural curve. You’d be panting by then, surprised and breathless and flushed. Achy and confused and so fuckin’ needy that your cunt probably hurts with emptiness. You might get tears in those big soft eyes of yours, maybe ask over trembling lips if he’s mad at you.
As if he could be really be mad at a girl like you.
He imagines sweeping his thumbs comfortingly, soothingly over those pretty little nipples. They remind him of those tiny, tightly-furled flowers they like to grow in the Xandaran public gardens. Quill had called them rosebuds, which Rocket is pretty sure is a Terran term and unlikely to be their actual name, but the word springs to mind when he pictures your nipples tightening further under his careful, teasing fingers.
No, he imagines telling you, as soft and low as he can make his voice. He knows every word out of his mouth sounds like a jeer or a threat, even when he doesn’t want it to - like now. He really does just want to tell you what a fuckin’ sweetheart you are.
Can’t be mad at a little slut who just needs her pretty tits fucked. But I do wanna make ‘em glow first.
Then he levies a sharp, precise slap to one of them, his own fingers stinging as they collide ruthlessly with your nipple. You cry out and your breast bounces under the impact, skin already reddening. You bite your lip, tears slipping out over your cheek, and for a minute his imagination stutters because this is probably some sick shit, and he doesn’t think he really wants to hurt you.
But in his mind, you’re not hurt - not really. You’re looking up at him with wide, shocked wet eyes and parted lips, but what spills out over them isn’t a protest but a silvery little moan.
Please, he imagines you saying, like you don’t know what you’re asking for, like you weren’t quite prepared when you’d welcomed him into your shower stall but desperately want more of what he’s giving you. Please do it again.
So he slaps your other breast right across your areola, imagining it jostle and sway as you gasp out a wounded, needy little cry, and he leans back to watch the matching handprints - his matching handprints - bloom on your skin.
The idea of it - his handprints rosy on your soft, lovely breasts - it does something to him. His hand, which has been lightly skimming against his dick, tightens suddenly around the base of it.
Then he’s gently rolling your nipples again - plucking, tugging carefully. He pictures your hips as they begin to twitch - almost involuntarily - and imagines lodging the top of his foot more fully against your cunt. You’d be dripping at this point, he thinks. He imagines drawing his fingers slowly over the rosy tips of your breasts, easing you into that illusion of safety, before darting in for another pinch - just hard enough and persistent enough that he knows your clit must be buzzing and tingling. And this time, when you arch, he tugs - softly but relentlessly - on your nipples until you roll forward onto your knees and your clit rocks against the top of his foot.
He eases up the pressure of his grip, but he doesn’t let you go. Instead, he imagines lifting his hands a little higher, just so you can feel the weight of your breasts on your sore, tingling nipples. Every little jerk sends a shock straight into your clit and cunt - but every shallow movement of your hips only causes your breasts to tug a little more against his grip. He imagines you caught in a desperate, pleading little cycle: a pendulum swinging between your need for friction on your clit, and your apprehension at the thought of any further stimulation on the poor, abused little rosebuds of your nipples. You’d knot your hands in needy fistfuls of his jumpsuit: over his thighs, or at the sides of his hips. Maybe you’d be hanging onto his belt, trying to gain some leverage while you rock your pussy against him and try to find relief from his little tugs on your tits.
You’re taking this so nice, he imagines telling you, and he means it, even though he knows he sounds patronizing and smug as hell. He doesn’t have enough practice sounding gentle. He should practice, probably. You’re being so nice to me. Such a good little slut, letting me do whatever I want to her soft, pretty tits.
You look up at him with those starry eyelashes - hair still wet, cheeks now shining with tears instead of shower-water.
Do you want to fuck them? you ask. Maybe it’s meant to be an offer, but your voice is almost pleading. Then you do plead: Please, Rocket, please fuck them. I’ve been wanting your dick since I met you.
Then get me outta this frickin’ jumpsuit, doll, he replies dryly, and lets you struggle with the buckles and straps while he deftly thumbs your nipples, not letting up on them at all. Instead, he imagines ducking his head to slide his tongue over both of them, to get the taste of them in his mouth and distract you with the wet scrape of it. Your breath hitches and he feels your hips jolt, suddenly arrhythmic at the texture of his tongue. Then he’s feathering a breath on the trail of gleaming wet he’s left behind: lovingly ghosting cold air onto the damp surface of your nipples, watching admiringly as they tighten even further. You whimper and pull needily on his jumpsuit.
When he imagines you finally have the top half of the jumpsuit tugged down to his hips and you can reach in and take him out, he suspects that you do it so sweetly and carefully that he almost feels bad about the brutal treatment he’s been giving your poor, vulnerable tits. He promises himself he’ll make it up to you later. He’ll be so nice to you.
I can feel and hear how wet you are, he tells you instead. Go ahead and shove your pretty fingers deep up your cunt so you can share some of that with me, sweetheart.
And you do, flushing and whining and still rocking against him needily, still caught in an unwinnable war with his fingers working away at your nipples. Your eyes are so glazed right now that he’s surprised you’re able to follow through: dipping your fingers between your soaked thighs and his drenched foot, curling them up inside you, and bringing your slippery hands to coat his dick with your own wetness.
Hold these for me, sweetheart, he tells you, and you shift your shaky hands from him to your own breasts, cupping them to keep them aloft and pressed together like an offering. It’s just as well because he expects actually having your hands on him for any longer - smearing him with the slick fluids you’ve made for him - would probably result in an ejaculation so premature he can’t even survive it in his fantasies.
Then he’s sliding up between your breasts and the slippery-soft feel of them has him groaning.
His hands take over for you: palming your tits more tightly around his dick, thumbs flicking over your nipples again and pressing against them, grinding them upward. You whine, hips crushing your clit down into the top of his foot and ankle desperately. Your fingers cling to his hips for leverage.
Good girl, he thinks feverishly, thrusting into his fist and imagining it’s the softness of your breasts and not his own callused, scarred palm. Play with yourself, sweetheart - make yourself come for me.
And you listen: dropping one hand between your thighs. He can feel your fingers working at yourself furiously, even as you continue to writhe and ride against him. But then you also dip your head, and that pretty pink mouth of yours opens to lap greedily at the head of his cock every time it emerges from your cleavage.
Rocket’s hip snap forward at the sudden mental image. Later, he won’t be able to say where it had come from - only that it had been the hottest thing he’d dreamed up in his life. You, with your pretty head bowed, desperately chasing his dick with kitten licks while he ruts between your tits and plays with your nipples, and you fuck your own fingers against his foot while you whine and wriggle.
Filthy fuckin’ girl. Sweet, soft girl.
He imagines you coming, electric-hot and arching into his hands while you’re on your knees on the shower floor like a supplicant, begging him to pretty-please come on your tits. It’s only a few more sharp, hard, erratic thrusts into his strangling fist before the slow-burning fuse in his abdomen detonates, white-hot and blinding with a smokeless, molten fire. He erupts over his own hand, into the fur across his abdomen, breathing harsh and guttural and ragged.
He stares up at the dark ceiling of his bunk, low-light vision useless when he’s blown out his own optic nerves. For a second, he pictures the aftermath of you. Your eyes would be all dazed and glossy and feverish, those gorgeous reddened breasts slick with his come. You’d be looking up at him like you’d let him- let him what? Let him bundle you up and shuffle you out of the showers, keep you tucked away safe in his bunk forever? Let him try to be nice to you?
Yeah, he thinks. Yeah, all a’ that.
And then:
…Fuck.
Orloni-shit Kree-fuckin’ fuck.
He shouldn’t’ve done that.
His spend is still warm on his knuckles and he’s already full of regret. You’re just the frickin’ new girl on the team. You didn’t ask for this. You’re still getting used to everything - he’s not even sure you know your way around the flight deck yet. How the fuck is he supposed to work with you - to treat you with anything remotely resembling normalcy - when he’s just let himself entertain one of the most unhinged sexual fantasies he’s had in recent memory?
Specifically, an incredibly hot unhinged sexual fantasy, starring you: your tiny pink tongue and your big tear-silvered eyes - your tight, gushing little cunt, and those fuckin’ perfect tits with their Xandaran rosebud nipples?
Fuck.
He crushes his clean hand into his brow, forefinger and thumb pressed into orbital sockets to try to relieve some of the pressure building there. It takes a minute, but eventually he rises - slump-shouldered and ego-bruised - to fish out a couple of the clean hand towels he keeps tucked into a drawer in his workbench. They’re usually reserved for wiping engine grease off his hands but tonight they’ll serve a different purpose.
He cleans the come from his fur, grimacing. He’d take a shower if he didn’t think the sight of a stall door would set him right back to square one. Instead, the little sink in the corner will serve him just fine for now. He splashes some water on himself and attacks his fur again with another clean cloth, then tosses both in a laundry locker to deal with tomorrow.
Once he feels like a person again instead of some kind of creepy frickin’ perv, he slides into a pair of soft pants and grabs the jar of moonshine - ignoring the zargnuts after all - and peels back the blankets on his mattress. He hasn’t been sleeping well anyway - the nightmares come and go in waves, and the past few cycles have been bad - but he thinks if he chases that frenzied orgasm with a pint of engine-fuel-flavored yaro root moonshine, maybe he’ll crash hard tonight.
Maybe.
And then - gentle and light - there’s the tap of soft fingertips at the door. It’s a sound that wants to go unheard - like the person making it thinks he’s already asleep, and only wants him to dream of a quiet, comforting rainfall.
It startles him, honestly - because no-one on this ship knocks so thoughtfully, so tenderly - which should probably tip him off.
But it doesn’t, and when he slides the door open, he’s faced with you - once again.
You look a little surprised that he’s awake, or maybe that he’s acknowledging you at all - and that makes him feel like a jackass. Eyes wide on him, you take in the breadth of his shoulders and the gleaming collarbones before your gaze jumps guiltily to his face. For just a second, Rocket’s hackles raise and he nearly bares his teeth instinctively - but then he remembers that he’d stared at your damp, flushed tits for at least ten seconds or longer, then imagined slapping and pinching your poor nipples into swollen red rosebuds while he fucked himself into his hand.
He probably has no right to resent your quick, startled glance.
And it’s unlikely you’ll be fantasizing about his body, anyway.
“Sorry,” you murmur. “I didn’t mean to - uhm. To disturb you? But you weren’t at dinner, so I thought I’d see if you were hungry or anything.”
He realizes, suddenly, what you’re holding: a plate of food - covered to keep its contents warm - and a cartoon of Indigarran-pear-flavored milky fizz. It’s his favorite non-alcoholic drink, and he’s pretty sure it had been the last of its kind currently in the coldbox. For a second, his already-thudding heart skitters against his ribs.
No. Coincidence, most likely.
“I’m good,” he mutters, and winces internally at the brusqueness of his own voice.
You hesitate, then drop your voice. “Uhm. I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t - I’m sure you just want to forget about it so I won’t bring it up again, but I wanted to apologize.” He can see you bite the inside of your cheek, nervous.
Are you mad at me? the fantasy of you had asked him, and you’d looked just like this in his mind - albeit down on the floor in front of him, wearing significantly fewer clothes, and with your nipples warm between his fingers.
“I’m good,” he repeats flatly, and he hates how frickin’ cold he sounds.
You nod uncertainly, then look down at the offerings in your hands - seemingly useless, seemingly unwanted. He just knows he must be the biggest fuckin’ jerk in the galaxy.
But you just offer him a half-smile and a quiet good night as you turn to leave, taking all your small gifts with you.
It’s not the smile you’d given him when you’d reached for him in his fantasies. Not seductive, or sluttish. No ulterior motives.
It’s better. It’s real. And it’s unbearably frickin’ soft. And it is - still - just for him.
Rocket doesn’t get many soft things in his life.
“Wait,” he utters, and you go still. When you turn back, he can see something half-hopeful in your pretty eyes.
He clears his throat. “You like yaro root moonshine? I prob’ly shouldn’t drink a whole jar by myself.”
The smile that blooms this time puts even Xandaran rosebuds to shame, and Rocket swallows.
“I haven’t had it,” you admit, a pink tint rising in your cheeks. “But I’d definitely try it.” You take an hesitant step back toward him.
Something under his ribcage tightens - but not in a bad way, he thinks. He takes the plate and the carton of pear-flavored milky fizz from your hands. “Thanks,” he says: keeping his voice casual, pretending it doesn’t matter. “The pear’s my favorite.”
“I know,” you say simply, like you don’t even realize how frickin’ sweet of a thing that is.
How soft it is.
Rocket swallows again, and steps back from his doorway, and invites you in.