Title: Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
Fandom: Guardians of the Galaxy (MCU), Firefly
Pairing/Characters: Peter Quill, Simon Tam, Rocket, Groot, River Tam
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1654
Prompt: For the intoabar prompt "Peter Quill goes into a bar and meets Simon Tam"
Summary: "They call us the Guardians of the Galaxy," Quill said, still somewhat peeved. "You're not from the galaxy?"
Content Notes: No standard warnings apply.
Author Notes: The title is from a song by Klaaatu (covered by The Carpenters), in keeping with the 70's soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy. At time of posting you can find a music vid here and the lyrics here
Also @ AO3

Peter Quill marched up to the bar, leaned on the bar top, and immediately wished he hadn't. He glanced down with a grimace.

"Sorry," the patron on the stool next to him said. "S'was in my drink and I wasn't sure what it was so I didn't want to eat it."

Quill lifted his elbow and gingerly peeled the sticky blue fruit slice off his coat. He eyed the pale stranger, who didn't seem dangerous. "No harm done." Besides, Quill was feeling generous, having just got paid for a job.

Rocket clambered up on the stool next to the stranger. "Why you wanna drink that weird concoction anyway?"

The man stared at him, than at his cocktail, than back at Rocket. "Stating to wish I hadn't. It's sweeter and stronger than Mudder's Milk. It sounded nice. River of Stars. It's my sister's name. River, not stars. I'm Simon. Dr Tam. Simon Tam." He held out a hand, shook his head, and turned to Quill. In a stage whisper he asked, "Is that a racoon or am I more than drunk than I think I am?"

"Some of both," Quill said, amused. "That's Rocket. I'm Peter Quill. AKA Star-lord. Maybe you've heard of me?"

"Oh, man," Rocket said and waved at the bartender.

"Sorry, no, I haven't but, please don't be offended," Simon said. "I'm not from around here. And please, let me pay for your drinks. Least I can do since I got your coat all mussed up."

Quill wasn't about to refuse a free drink so he pulled up the stool on the other side of Simon. "They call us the Guardians of the Galaxy," he said, still somewhat peeved. "You're not from the galaxy?"

Simon shook his head. "Different dimension, I think. It was River's fault. And Kaylee's, letting her install that thing into the engine; you think she'd have been too protective of Serenity to risk it. And that man that River keeps saying she's met, giving her ideas about time travel. And Mal, well, "let's see what it does". Does that sound like a responsible thing to say?"

Their drinks arrived. Quill took a sip. Let's see what it does sounded like a perfectly reasonable thing to say. If you didn't push the button, for example, you never found out what it did. He watched Simon gingerly remove another blue fruit slice from his replenished cocktail and place it carefully on the bar.

"You remind me a little of Mal," Simon said with sudden insight. "Maybe it's the coat. He loves that coat. Again, sorry. About the fruit. Is it a fruit?"

Quill brushed his fingers against the coat in question. He was pretty fond of his garment too. "I've had worse things on it. Entrails, last week."

Simon didn't recoil in disgust. "Oh," he said. "That's…nice."

"This guy is drunk, and possibly crazy," Rocket said, downing the entire contents of his glass and waving the empty vessel around in hopes of a refill.

"Be nice," Quill said, if not least because Rocket was probably right. While Quill could be a dick, it would be an asshole move to leave Simon here alone with more predatory patrons and he'd decided that after a couple more drinks he'd try and reunite Simon with River, or Mal, or Serenity, or whoever. They were probably out looking for him. There might even be a reward.

"So are you, er, a police officer?" Simon asked. "Guarding the galaxy from evil?"

Rocket collapsed in hysterics, thumping the bar top with one tiny clawed hand. Quill suppressed a shudder. "No, not a cop," he said. "But we did save the galaxy."

Quill told his tale, always glad of a chance to recall his heroics – and possibly embellish them somewhat. Rocket interrupted with his own amendment, while Simon listened, enraptured. At the end of the story, though, his face fell.

"We saved the 'Verse," he grumbled, "and we didn't get a pardon. The Alliance are still looking for us!"

An outlaw? Quill was surprised, but hell, outlaws were kindred of a kind and he warmed further to Simon. "What did you do?"

Simon launched into his own rambling story of tyranny and betrayal, of heroic rescues, snarky space captains, beautiful but deadly women, and some creatures called Reavers that Quill thought ought to give any sane person nightmares. Even Rocket looked a little green at the graphic descriptions of Reaver activities.

"And no medals. Not so much as a thank you. Patched up our ship, like they did for you," Simon said, winding up his tale as he sipped at a fourth River of Stars. "But we're still fugitives."

Rocket, part-way through a third drink, sighed. "That's law abiders for you."

There was a thump and clearing of the way by other patrons as Groot entered. He was almost back to his full height now, though a little lopsided from a recent growth spurt, and sometimes he forgot to watch where some of his lower branches were trailing. A table was knocked to the floor. Groot bent over to right it,

"I am Groot," he said, finally joining them. Simon looked even paler, though maybe that was the cocktails. Else a talking tree was more of a shock than a talking racoon.

"Is he…is he or she an Ent?" he asked.

"What's an Ent?" Quill returned.

Simon gestured. "A mythical creature, a sentient tree-like life form featured in the ancient writings of an author from Earth-That-Was." Simon stared at Groot. "How amazing!"

"I am Groot," Groot supplied and Simon smiled.

Quill had other things on his mind. "Earth-that-what?" he demanded.

Simon blinked a few times. "Um, Earth was –"

"Is! Earth, Terra, is – is – Earth-That-Is!" Terra had to still be there. Quill might not live on his home planet but he felt a sentimental attachment to it even now. Surely they'd have heard if anyone had dared attack Earth.

"Maybe he means some other Earth, or Terra," Rocket offered.

Groot nodded. "I am Groot?"

Simon dipped his finger into the dregs of his cocktail and drew the solar system on the bar top, pointing out the sun and moon, naming the planets. "But it was a very, very, long time ago," he said.

"But not in a galaxy far away," Quill whispered. "You're a time traveller. From the future."

Simon shrugged. "I wasn't until yesterday. Or, as I'm sure I said, I'm possibly from a different dimension. Or both a different time and dimension. Now we need a –"

Quill listened, understood only a few of the words, and said, "A quantum what?"

"I am Groot," Groot told him, which made about as much sense as when Simon had explained it.

"You're not going to get one of those at any old market stall," Rocket commented.

"I know. But we got a lead on where to buy one. Only then Jayne got arrested and Inara went to bail him out and I had an incident with a blue skinned gentleman and River gave me some currency to use here and told me to wait at the bar while she and Mal fetched the part. The others are back on board, readying the engine." Simon sighed.

Quill was thinking. If time travel was possible, then he could go back, back to before his mother got sick, and then – then what? Bring her forwards in time, bring her here, where medicine was much more sophisticated? Would it save her, though? Would there be a "here" if he changed his past? If he hadn't been abducted after her death, he and the others would not have, ultimately, defeated Ronan.

"Simon!" A petite woman danced over to them, brunette locks swaying around her shoulders. "I said get a drink, not four!" She inclined her head to Quill. "Please excuse my brother."

Quill, shaken from his reverie, smiled winningly. "You must be River. Simon has been telling us all about you and the quantum thing."

"I am Groot!"

"Yeah, that thing."

River laughed and it was like music to his ears. "I have found one. We can be on our way."

"River, this is Peter Quill the Star-Lord," Simon said, "And Rocket. And Groot."

River nodded. "It is a pleasure to meet you all."

"It's really just Star-lord. Not "the Star-lord"," Quill said. "Do you have to go so soon?"

"Stop hitting on my sister," Simon said with a glare. "She can kill you with her brain. And anything in this bar, up to and including this plastic cocktail stick." He brandished the offending item.

"Pretty but deadly's his type," Rocket giggled. If Peter had been closer, he'd have smacked his stripy head.

River rolled her eyes. "Simon means well. And yes, we must go. But I have a feeling we will meet again, Star-lord. Rocket. Groot."

"I am Groot." Groot looked pleased at that.

River led her brother away. Quill heard him saying, "They're heroes you know, and they got a pardon –" before he was dragged out of the bar.

"A doctor on board," Quill said at last. "That doesn't seem like a bad plan."

Rocket bristled, having a distrust for scientists on the whole, and with doctors and other biologists in particular. "I patched you up good last week."

"Tying a dirty rag over an open wound is not patching up!"

"I am Groot!"

"Why you always gotta take his side? And watch where you're shedding!"

Quill listened the bickering. It was almost soothing these days, the constant back and forth. Soon Drax and Gamora would return, his own heavy-weight mercenary and deadly assassin, and they'd make a move back to the Milano.

Maybe Simon was crazy. Or maybe time travel was possible. And maybe that was something worth thinking about. And in the end, Quill had got to have some drinks and swap embellished war stories with a fellow outlaw, and there were far worse days to have.