Peter
bites his lip not wanting to let go of Kraglin and whimpers before
sliding to his seat and fastens the seatbelt looking like he would fall
apart again.Kraglin grabbed his seatbelt and he happened to glance at Peter again. He paused, but then came to a decision. Instead of sitting in the window seat he scoot over toward the middle and straddled his legs over the weird little hump on the floor of the vehicle (why the hell was that thing there? To make children rebel, he supposed). He put on the little waist belt there, feeling incredibly awkward with his long legs, and then reached to put an arm around Peter’s shoulder.
Carlos looked at Kraglin through the rear-view mirror and frowned. “Kraglin, I can’t see,” he said.
“You can turn your head,” Kraglin told him a little snarkily, but he ducked his head a bit toward Peter anyway, rubbing the younger man’s shoulder.
Peter snuggles against him and looks at him. “L… Love ya…. bro….”
“C’mon, Pete… not in front of Carlos and his brother,” Kraglin said, but he still smiled at Peter and gave his shoulder a squeeze.
Carlos pulled them out of the parking lot and started to look around for the Wendy’s.
“Down the street,” Mikey told his brother helpfully.
Carlos nodded. “Thanks,” he said and started to drive. ‘Sorry… still trying to get my bearings.”
Peter nods. “Sorry……forgot you…. hate sentiment….” snuggles closer to him closing his eyes. After s bit he wakes and blinks at the chocolate cone being handed to him and he smiles licking at it.
The ice cream in Kraglin’s cone looked a little sad, he thought. It wasn’t piled up high like ice cream was supposed to be. But Mikey was already slurping down his, and so was Carlos. Kraglin tried it and, yeah, it was sweet enough. Okay, he could eat this. He started to lick at it, awkwardly dipping his tongue down into the “waffle cone”, as it was called.
“I’m going to park us back outside the store again and we’ll just sit and eat,” Carlos said. He handed his cone to Mikey to hold and drove them back to the store.
Peter eats the icecream finishing it in record time before snuggling up against Kraglin waiting on them stealing a lick of kraglins cone just because.
Kraglin snarled at him, but it was in complete jest. If the kid wanted more ice cream, he could have it – Kraglin could just bully Carlos into getting them more.
“This stuff tastes really sweet,” he told Carlos. “And the edible cup it comes in – that’s genius.”
Carlos smiled. “Glad you like it, Kraglin.”
Steals another lick then snuggles up against him closing his eyes to relax until everyone else was ready. He was calmer thankfully but still a bit jittery. “You won’t ever leave me right bro.”
Kraglin looked down at Peter. He smiled very slightly and shook his head. “Not if I help it,” he told Peter softly. He finished his ice cream and just held Peter as they waited. “Hey, Ramon – make sure you take Yondu to that place where we got the ice cream. He’d love it.”
Carlos looked back at Kraglin. “I… guess I could take him tonight… when it’s dark so nobody sees him.”
Peter yawns a bit. “If we had that in space dad would be so fat hehe.”
Carlos looked at Peter with a slight smile. “I don’t know if he told you this, but when he took me to my apartment to get my things back on M-Marvin-48 I told him he could raid my fridge. He found the ice cream I had and ate a whole tub of it by himself.”
“There’s ice cream in space?” Mikey asked.
“Yeah – it’s just ‘healthier’, supposedly. I think mine was loaded with chemicals,” Carlos told his brother.
“It’s made from a milk reed and the flavors come from spices mixed with different kinds of beetles…….” goes back to napping against his brother.
Mikey makes a face of utter awe and disgust. Carlos just frowned. “I thought so… it tasted cheap. But it was one of the only cheap sweet things that I wasn’t allergic to, so I was just happy to have it.”
“Carlos, there were beetles in that!” Mikey exclaimed, shocked at how calm his brother seemed to be.
Carlos just looked at him. “I’ve eaten bugs before – it’s not a big deal.”
Peter chuckles a bit. “I’ve eaten waaay stranger things while being raised in space…… luckily most things safe for xandarians are safe for humans. I’ve managed to avoid having something burn through my organs…”
“I’ve had a bit of a harder time,” Carlos said. “I have a nut allergy, and it’s flared up a couple times.”
Normally peter would take advantage of a good nut joke but he kept silent. After a bit everyone was ready to go back in the shopping center. Peter kept pretty close to Kraglin not wanting to be to far from him.
Kraglin, for his part, acted pretty unfazed by Peter’s clinginess, but really he was keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn’t get uncomfortable again.
Speaking of uncomfortable, his stomach was starting to feel queasy. Gods, if he picked up some primitive Terran bug already…
“How many bags of Cheetos should we get?” Carlos asked.
Peter thinks. “As many as can fit in the cart? I think some of the other crew would like them…..” Looks to Kraglin then looks at the little Debbie snack cakes.
Carlos frowned. “I’m not getting some for the whole crew,” he said flatly.
“Why not?” Mikey asked. “It’d be nice!”
“Because, Mikey, that ship is absolutely massive! Nearly two hundred people are on that thing.”
“Most’a them wouldn’t even appreciate it,” Kraglin said with a slight shrug. He looked to where Peter was looking, and he just grabbed a box and tossed it into the cart.
The Perfect Scientist 
