[OTA] shopping or whatever

[st_ripetail]

The 'boutique' was pretty much a nightmare of pink and glittery, at least in places, but the fact that the thing restocked itself was useful as fuck. Sure, you couldn't always rely on finding the same things you did before, but there was almost always something similar. And Rocket was used to repurposing and relying on junk, anyway. Junk was usually free. Nobody cared if you took their garbage, and they didn't care for long after they were blown up by what you'd turned the garbage into.

All of which was why Rocket spent a lot more time in the boutique/gift shop than most people would have expected, given that there was nothing pink and glittery about him. Except, now, a backpack which was still pink but no longer glittery, as the rhinestone-things had been pried off and store elsewhere.

As per usual, he climbed shelves and fixtures, evaluating items and occasionally shoving something into the backpack. There was a heavy emphasis on anything with clockwork or mechanisms, but also postcards, greeting cards, and clothes that had rhinestones, sequins, or beads.

Comments

Vex & Rocket

[st_ubby]

Vex was far more interested in clothes and accessories – a trait she shared with her brother – than souvenirs, toiletries, and other miscellany. That was why she'd taken over supervising the boutique while leaving the gift shop to fend for itself. She wasn't there all the time, but often enough to have a fairly good mental inventory of what was there at any given time, adjusting it as the inn added new and different items.

Just recently she'd noticed someone had an interest in some of the more bedazzled – Vex loved that word, although she couldn't remember now if it was Steph or Caroline she'd heard it from first, it was just perfect for the kinds of things it described – accessories and tops. But she hadn't seen anyone wearing the items that hadn't stayed in the shop for long.

When she came into the boutique today, she thought she would start with the swimsuits, seeing what, if anything, was new, and reorganizing the display for best effect. And also to see if there was anything that would make Percy's jaw drop, because the pool was calling with the weather warming up. What she hadn't expected was for someone else to be in the shop when she arrived, but she could hear them moving around before she could see them.

Oh. The raccoon. She had heard, of course, there was a talking raccoon in the inn. And she wouldn't have been as worried by a raccoon in general as some might. She did have a bear, after all, and Rocket wore clothes and talked and everything, although Vex hadn't met him exactly yet.

"Finding everything all right, darling?" she chimed, watching as he scampered from one shelf to another. Yes, she was standing by that word. Trinket lumbered, Rocket scampered.

Butters and Rocket

[st_rutsthepolka]

Butters was too much a child of the Midwest to have entirely suppressed his instinctive "oh god there's a raccoon in the store" reaction, but he got over it quickly. "Sentient space raccoon" was the kind of news that got around, and what the hell, stranger things had happened--if Bob was to be believed, Harry had once bummed a donut off a Billy Goat Gruff. Anyway, he was here on a mission of his own.

"Don't suppose you've run across a tuba or an accordion anywhere, have you?" he called up to the raccoon.

[st_arlord]

Quill watched for a minute or two in fascination. He knew Rocket was up to something. Rocket was always up to something.

The pink backpack's a nice touch...

"I'll pay money to see you wear that pink tank top you just shoved in your bag." He said with a smirk.

Re: Vex & Rocket

[st_ripetail]

"You think any'a this shit's hard to find?" Rocket dangled one of the things - a bracelet seemingly made of thin bright pink rope and oversized beads, tacky as shit - off the shelf before stashing it in the pack. "It practically fuckin' glows. But ya know, I'm also finding I'm not good with the cutesy. Name's Rocket, and I am not, never have been, an' never will be anyone's fuckin' darling."

Re: Butters and Rocket

[st_ripetail]

"If I knew what either'a those things were, the answer'd prob'ly still be no." It was a good thing he'd had a couple years in Gotham to get at least a little used to humies just acting like he was a normal thing, Rocket thought. It'd never completely stop being weird, but it made life easier, especially when there wasn't much of a body count to pile up before he was left alone.

But that didn't mean he couldn't mess with them. Rocket dangled a thing off a shelf. "Hey, is this it?" (It was not. It was a glittery pink pen on a lanyard.)

[st_ripetail]

"Fuck no." It was too big, and that actually was why. In the earliest days in Gotham, before he'd found ways to get actual clothes his size, a lot of the things he'd had to wear had shit like cartoon yellow birds or rainbows or whatever. It sucked being toddler-humie size.

Rocket pulled the tank top back out of the bag to show Quill the letters picked out in sparkly little rocks. "See this? This's shrapnel, Quill. Add enough boom an' it'll tear shit up."

Re: Butters and Rocket

[st_rutsthepolka]

"No, but that's completely fair, I should have asked if they have polka in space. Hang on." Butters did, of course, have a selection of polka videos on his phone. Let's see, the actual polka suit was probably a little... much for an introduction, and while he did have a couple of Jolly Rogers performances because it was always good to know your enemy, screw the Jolly Rogers. Ah, of course, you couldn't go wrong with Al. "Accordion's what the guy in the middle is playing, and the yeti on the right has the tuba."

Re: Butters and Rocket

[st_ripetail]

Rocket watched it for probably longer than was safe for his brain cells (what? what was that? why?) before shaking his head and making a shoving motion at the phone. "Every time I think I seen the weirdest fuckin' humie shit, along comes somethin' new." But because his brain didn't actually turn off very often, and it was an obvious question, he asked, "Why d'you want both? An' if you're gonna tell me there's more than one'a you, consider lying."

Re: Butters and Rocket

[st_rutsthepolka]

"Oh, I play them at the same time. At home, I mean." Butters queued up a second video, clearly shot on a phone, of himself bouncing around on a stage wearing an ungainly amalgamation of an accordion, a tuba, and a bass drum, cheerfully polka-ing away. "This is last year at Oktoberfest. I came in second."

Re: Butters and Rocket

[st_ripetail]

"That is fuckin' horrifyin'." Rocket assumed 'horrifying' was what he'd been going for, so it was a compliment. "If I weren't already kinda stuck here, I'd say I'm staying the fuck away from Earth. Not that I hadn't been tryin' to anyway."

[st_arkintern]

"Need any help?"

Peter Parker might not know all the requirements for being taken off probation as a Guardian, but Quill did say early in their conversation that Rocket'd need to like him.

Peter wasn't entirely sure if Rocket liked him. Then again, Rocket could have easily shot him the first time they met, and he hadn't done that either. Maybe he was just okay with him? Peter wasn't sure.

Still, he wasn't taking chances. Okay was not like. Okay was more like tolerate, and Peter didn't want to be someone that the Guardians just tolerated, like a hanger-on.

"I can carry things," he says. "Lots of things. I'm really good at it."

[st_ripetail]

Rocket hopped down from the fixture he'd been climbing on, down to the ground. His ears flattened briefly, as he wondered what the kid was up to. Who sucked up like that, for no reason? But then he remembered that 'eager to please' was basically his whole experience of Peter Parker, so it was just Spider-Kid being Spider-Kid.

So he tempered his initial 'fuck off!' into something else. "Need, no." It wasn't okay to need help. Do things for yourself or they didn't get done. "But if you're offerin', I might take one or two'a these rack things. Metal's always useful an' I bet I could find a way to cut it up."

Re: Butters and Rocket

[st_rutsthepolka]

"I know, right? I swear the Jolly Rogers have an in with the judges or something." Butters shrugged. "Anyway, I've been trying to put a polka suit together just for something to do with all the spare time we get around here, but whoever or whatever restocks the stores doesn't seem to think musical instruments are a priority."

[st_arkintern]

Peter looked over at the racks, not sure if the inn would actually replace them the next day. It might. But it also might not.

Peter frowned, worried.

If it were only one or two racks, though, they probably wouldn't be missed, right?

Peter clears one of the racks, moving the merchandise not pillaged (or not yet pillaged) by Rocket elsewhere. He doesn't want to make a mess here, even if Rocket doesn't seem particularly concerned about tidiness.

Peter easily picks up the cleared rack.

"Anything else?"

[st_ripetail]

Now Rocket did bare his teeth a little. "Okay, I'll bite. What's your game here, kid? Nobody sucks up like this for no reason."

Re: Butters and Rocket

[st_ripetail]

Good, it'd been taken as a compliment. Not that the sad hurt humie face wasn't fun and all, just that this one wouldn't've been as fun as Quill's on account of being about a thousand percent sadder. And Rocket was too distracted to care more. "Well, not for nothin' but I build shit sometimes an' I mighta been collecting junk. I could maybe try to build an 'accordion' thing if you promise you'll never show me those videos again."

More projects were good. Even a weird compressed-air caterwauly thing would kill time.

[st_arkintern]

"Mr. Star-Lord has me on probation," he says. "He wants to make sure we all get along."

But that's not the only reason.

"I also just like helping," he says. "A lot of people here don't really need my help."

It's true.

[st_illsinging]

"Somehow I think the lady running the boutique might have a word or two for you if you keep making a mess." Scanlan, the 3-foot Gnome, looked more amused than anything else though. "Good climbing technique"

That was one way to get over the height problem.

[st_ripetail]

"Pretty sure I don't care about that. Besides, if you think about it I'm doin' her a favor. Alleviatin' the fuckin' boredom." To prove it, Rocket dropped an unsatisfactory skirt thing on the ground (too plain) and jumped to the next rack over. "You don't climb to get stuff? What d'you do instead, ask? 'Oh please sir-stroke-madam will you get that thing for my tiny ass?'"

[st_ripetail]

"Probation?" Probation for what? Quill was weird, so that was almost normal, but still. Definitely normal was Quill worrying about people getting along. "If you're not bleeding from any new holes, which I note you are fuckin' not, we get along fine."

So hopefully it was more the second option. "I might go pokin' around rocks an' shit outside, sometime. See if there's anything useful might need to be prospected or mined." Probably not, but it was something to do. "You wanna be a pack animal, I'll bring you along."

[st_illsinging]

Scanlan was so going to let Rocket dig the hole with Vex rather than warn him. It would be far more fun to sit back and watch the show, anyways. Talk about relieving boredom!

Scanlan sang the words 'Bigby's hannnnnnd' and a big purple hand showed up in the middle of the room. "Usually I get this guy to do my work for me. Or an unseen servant." He paused. "I have tricks up my sleeve."

[st_ripetail]

Rocket rolled his eyes and claimed a not-sweater that looked like it'd been made of sequins. Jackpot! "Real subtle tricks, I can tell." Just because he wasn't being sneaky about this didn't mean he could be, but giant purple hand? It was about as sneaky as a sweater made of sequins.

[st_arkintern]

Peter looks pleased when Rocket indicates he is at least fine with him. Fine is actually better than what he expected.

"He says that I might be able to become a Guardian of the Galaxy, but that I'm currently on probation."

A beat.

"He didn't really tell me what else I needed to do to get off it." So now, Peter's just trying to do things to prove himself worthy.

"Y-yeah, I'm happy to go along."

[st_ripetail]

"Pretty sure he's just messin' with you. No way we're that fuckin' organized." Like the group had been planned at all in the first place? No, they'd just failed to scatter when they had a shot and kept on failing. "Just stick around an' help out when there's galaxy saving or some shit and that's it."

[st_arkintern]

Peter shoots Rocket a dubious look.

"Maybe the application process has changed since you guys were founded," he says. Peter is unwilling to believe that Quill might just be messing with him.

"What do you do when the galaxy doesn't need saving, though?" Like now?