HOORAY this is finally done! (you might have seen me accidentally post a bit of it like… FOUR MONTHS ago?) It is a missing scene from GOTG2, essentially. One I badly wanted to see, so I wrote it.
Title: What’s Left of You
Fandom: Guardians of the Galaxy
Rating: PG13 maybe, but only because of all the swearing
Characters: Rocket, Kraglin, Stakar Ogord, Aleta Ogord
Pairings: Kragdu, if you squint (you won’t have to squint very much)
Summary: Rocket and Kraglin send word to Yondu’s old Ravager buddies.*
Night had fallen.
Except it hadn’t, of course. Night can’t fall in space. But it felt like
night had fallen. If anyone had asked Rocket about his state of mind, as he
skulked in the shadows in the hangar, that would have been roughly what he’d
have told them. Just with more swearing.“I am Groot?” said Groot, who had followed him.
“They’re preparing the body. They won’t notice I’m gone. Or if they do,
they’ll just think it’s ‘cos I’m a coward, which they probably do anyway. Go
back upstairs.”“I am Groot,” said Groot forlornly, and left.
Rocket turned to the navcomputer in the corner and started pushing buttons,
before his mind could catch up with the rest of him and make him stop. There
was a vague list of possible contacts in his head, people who maybe could help
him find what he was looking for, but he wasn’t holding out much hope. Over and
over again he entered codes.“I need to get through to Stakar Ogord’s personal channel,” he told whoever
answered on the other end. Most of his contacts – scum of the galaxy, all of
them – just laughed and cut him off.“What the hell you be wanting that for?” the last guy said. “What’s a…
whatever the fuck you are… doing thinkin’ it’s important enough to talk to
the leader of the Ravagers?”“Oh, fuck off,” Rocket said in despair, and turned off the call. He decided
it would help considerably if he picked up his gun and shot at the console, but
when he turned around to get it he saw Kraglin was there. He was slumped against
the wall, doing nothing.“What’re you here avoiding?” Rocket asked, after a moment’s silence,
although he knew the answer.“All my friends are dead,” Kraglin said hollowly. “Thought that was shitty
enough, like an idiot. Now the person I guess I loved the most is dead too, and
I’ll never see him again.”Oh oh oh oh, this is breaking my damn heart but I love it so much, so so so so much.
For all I love the trope of the little pissant Guardians who have zero fucks left taking on the heads of the Ravager fleet and shaming them into action, this–this broken down pleading for spiritual clemency strikes me as a maybe more realistic way for things to have happened, even as poor Kraglin’s resignation breaks my poor sorry heart.
And of course Rocket would give no fucks, and of course Kraglin would feel the need to intervene. Poor guy.
Damn, though. Just… Damn. This is so good.
SECONDED ALL OF THE ABOVE this whole thing gently hurt in the very best of ways <3
thank you! :D