#θ thread

Pidge reaches down for Hunk’s arm and drapes it around her shoulder. Nice and protective and comforting. He always gives good hugs, even the sideways half-assed ones. “just... tell me they don’t know how old i am. there’s only so much teasing about kids i can take. do you think your parents will like me?”

She sighs out, curling up in her designated chair. There’s no one else on the bridge at this late hour; she and Shiro are surrounded by nothing but empty space and the starmap projecting from the controls. “i don’t think i could do it,” she says eventually, flinging herself headfirst onto whatever explosion this is going to cause. “i don’t think i could be you. it would be too much for me. the muscular dystrophy, the chronic pain, the galra, your arm--you freeze up, sometimes, and no one says anything about it, but i notice, and i see it, and--” Her throat’s gone all tight with everything she hasn’t said, eyes stinging as she chokes the words out. “it would be too much for me. if i started crying i don’t think i’d ever stop. i’d never be able to do what you do.” She swallows, hard, around a lump in her throat, voice shaky. “i’d be dead right now if i were you, but we’d all be dead right now if it weren’t for you. i just don’t know what to do, or how to help, or what to say, or how to make it right.” Before Shiro can look at her, she hurriedly wipes her face onto her sleeve.

“come on,” she insists, reaching an arm up to wrap around his shoulders when he won’t get a move on. Kind of pathetic, when she’s so much shorter than him, but he looks like he needs all the help he can get. “med bay. now.”

She trips her way into Shiro’s room, a little uncoordinated, throwing out her hand to catch herself on the wall. Heh. A little dizzy, seeing stars. Once she’s steady, she pushes off and gets her tablet in hand to show him her to-do list. She’s gently vibrating, jittering so hard that the text is unreadable. “look--these are some of the medications that kept coming up in my research. do you remember if you were on any drugs while you were at the garrison? did they tell you the names?” She’s talking just a little too fast. “i mean, there’s about twelve trade names and three generic names for each of these, they’re hard to pronounce, if you don’t remember it’s okay--i just want to get started on this. i can’t lose any time.” i can’t lose you.

“go on,” she encourages him, “put it on! i wanna see if this’ll work.” She’s on standby in case there are any terrifically bad technological malfunctions, but she has a feeling Hunk’s got this totally under control.

Okay, she hasn’t seen Hunk this sick since their Garrison cadet days, when he regularly hurled into the simulator components. “you’re collapsing on me,” she points out, “this isn’t just some little cramp. when did this start? how fast did it come on?” A little on the nose, but, “was it something you ate?” She wants to pull him up off the floor, but she’s convinced that if she tries, she’ll dislocate a shoulder or two. “you look horrible. do you need water?” With narrowed eyes, “are you going to throw up on me?”

Still, without a solid yes, Matt’s hedging. He’s got some fruity abomination of a liqueur in a fluted glass that he twists between his fingers, looking carefully at his beverage instead of the man next to him. He won’t take it hard if he’s turned down, he just wants to know, sooner rather than later, so he can get on with his night (and make some alternative plans, if needed). “We could always talk,” he says, lighthearted enough that it’s teasing but the subject matter bleak. “About why you felt like you needed to do that. Or you could just remind yourself that you’re alive, and you have a reason to live. Pick one. There’s millions.” And maybe I can be yours, for the night.

Years of going through that, being literally pushed around, verbally assaulted, bullied, and it took being in space with Shiro for someone to actually step in and do something about it. She’d tried to defend herself, back when it first started, but she was the one who’d gotten in trouble for it. To have someone fight back on her behalf was... overwhelming. As much as it hurt for Keith to have lashed out at her like that, and as much as she had wanted to believe that it was over, at least she had someone, now, who could do something about it.